West Bromwich shopping centre New Square enjoys bumper first Christmas

MANAGEMENT at West Bromwich shopping development New Square have announced a strong first Christmas for the new centre.

It described footfall figures over the festive period as “outstanding”.
 
The shopping centre, which opened in July, experienced its busiest day in the build up to Christmas on Saturday December 21, with a flurry of almost 22,000 shoppers. Volumes were swollen by retailers running pre-Christmas offers and sales.  The day also saw the centre attract its two millionth customer.
 
The opening of two additional fashion retailers – H&M on Thursday December 19 and Blue INC on December 21 – also helped to increase footfall.
 
H&M supported its opening with the pre-promotion of offers, in-store activities and a competition on the New Square Facebook Page.  On its opening morning there were more than 500 people in the queue waiting for the store to commence trading at 11am.
 
Overall more than 107,000 people visited New Square’s stores, restaurants and entertainment venues in the week prior to Christmas – an increase of 34,000 on the previous week. Christmas Eve saw 18,500 people visit the shops for their last minute gifts.
 
Boxing Day saw a burst of activity with overall footfall of 19,300 and 500 people queuing before 9am for the sale at Next.  The earliest bargain hunter began queuing at 2am.
 
Trading over the period was further boosted by late night opening hours.

Steve Burr, New Square centre manager, said: “As anticipated, New Square has had a successful first Christmas with the centre seeing one of its busiest days of the year for footfall.  Anecdotally, retailers have also reported strong sales figures.
 
“We have some great sales now running with anything from 30%-70% off across our retail offer which we are sure will continue to boost our footfall figures.
 
“I look forward to a busy Christmas sales period and welcoming more new retailers to New Square’s line up in 2014.”