Our Top 20 Shopping Centres – A Complex Sector, Retail

Inside Retailing Online reports that Melbourne’s Chadstone shopping centre is top of the pile this year with a turnover of $1 billion. Sydney’s Westfield Bondi Junction was second with a turnover of $900 million – an increase of 9.1% on the previous year.

The Shopping Centre News Survey

Australian shopping centres were ranked according to moving annual turnover for the 2007 financial year.

Turnover at the top 20 shopping centres rose more than 7% to $13.5 billion and nearly all of the 80 centres in the survey recorded turnover growth that kept pace with or exceeded inflation BUT the latest consumer confidence data indicates this is waning.

Sydney’s Warringah Mall came in third with a turnover of $767.8 million and Brisbane’s Westfield Chermside increased its turnover by a huge 41.4% to $705.8 million placing it sixth.

Full of franchises and calls to action such as “Locate your favourite store at…” you have to wonder what drives our Australia-wide desire for homogeneity???

The Top 20

1. Chadstone – Melbourne
2. Westfield Bondi Junction – Sydney
3. Warringah Mall – Northern Beaches, Sydney
4. Highpoint – Maribyrnong, Melbourne
5. Westfield Southland – Cheltenham, Melbourne
6. Westfield Chermside – Brisbane
7. Westfield Marion – Adelaide
8. Knox – Melbourne, eastern suburbs
9. Westfield Miranda – Southern Sydney
10. Castle Towers – Northwest Sydney
11. Westfield Carindale – Brisbane
12. Westfield Parramatta – Sydney
13. Westfield Fountain Gate – where Kath & Kim shop!
14. Pacific Fair – Broadbeach, Qld
15. Westfield Hornsby – Pacific Hwy, Sydney
16. Macquarie Centre – North Ryde, Sydney
17. Erina Fair – Central Coast, NSW
18. Garden City Booragoon – South of Perth
19. Westfield Garden City – Mt Gravatt, Brisbane
20. Westfield Penrith – regional centre west of Sydney

Some Thoughts On Regional Shopping Centres

Milton Cockburn, EO of the Shopping Centre Council of Australia discusses the criticisms of these centres:

• Too big, inhuman, cold, forbidding
• People want to shop in more personal locations
• All the shops are starting to look the same
• The strips and high streets are booming
• Factory outlets are putting shopping centres at risk

Milton says that, as with newspapers, there is a constant need for shopping centres to reinvent themselves, for example by adding cinemas, though on a five, three and one year basis, regional malls are outperforming the broader market.

It seems Australian regional centres are 20% more profitable than their US and Canadian counterparts though centre operators need to keep a ‘ruthless check’ on their tenant mix, the shopping environment and the services they are operating.