Bullring & Grand Central ‘step up’ with Kick Game
Iain Mitchell, UK Commercial Director at Hammerson
What do Anna Wintour (magazine editor), Kanye West (musician) and Serena Williams (athlete) have in common?
The answer: They have all stepped into strategic business partnerships in the lucrative market of limited edition sneakers. Such is their prestige, the resale market for limited edition footwear is valued at USD1bn globally.
However, it is not just resellers benefiting from demand in the industry. We know that our destinations benefit greatly from the physical presence of a specialist footwear store and the neighbouring tenants receive a notable boost in footfall and potential sales.
This year, the luxury footwear and apparel retailer, Kick Game opened an 800 sq ft store at Bullring & Grand Central, Birmingham; its first outside London and to great fanfare.
The new addition to our centre has clearly hit the spot with consumers, as in in the week after opening we welcomed an additional 9% in footfall to this part of the mall, bringing yet more customers to the other brands in the immediate area.
During May, on average, every fifteenth customer walking by Kick Game went in to explore the store, with Nike Air Jordan and Adidas Yeezy ranges, which retail from £200 to over £800, being the main attraction.
The customer acquisition cost for Kick Game was a mere 3% of sales, whilst an online retailer would typically spend up to 10% of its sales on marketing to draw people to their website.
At Bullring & Grand Central, besides Kick Game, we trialled stores for six other primarily digital brands this year - specialising in wellness, lifestyle and beauty - and these are all now planning further investment in physical spaces across our flagships.
It is the many anecdotes like this that really bring home the many ways that having a physical presence in a high footfall location can drive brand engagement and strong conversion rates compared to online.
An online presence certainly gives brands a great shoe in the door for growing their customer base, but the pent-up demand post lockdown has gone to show that brands will miss out if they can only offer one sole retail channel. So, for brands that may not yet have tested physical retail, the question is, will they follow Kick Game and Nike’s lead, and ‘Just Do It’?
