The Boulevard sees increased turnover

The Boulevard is continuing to buck the trend with an impressive 25% year-on-year increase in turnover and 7.3% upturn in footfall; a significant difference to the reported Northern Ireland retail footfall, which was down 7.3% during April*.

The Banbridge-based shopping destination, which successfully rebranded from The Outlet in March, has seen a range of high-level investments totalling to £7m over the past year. This has included an expansion of the retailer offering with recent store openings from adidas, Asics and Beauty Outlet, as well as shop refits from several existing retailers such as GAP, Paul Costello and Calvin Klein, positively impacting stock and customer experience.

These improvements are set to continue with the imminent opening of the new Kurt Geiger outlet store on Saturday, July 7, with the arrival of other well-loved brands to be announced soon.

The significant investment has also provided a number of further developments on site, including the installation of a new mall covering to provide a sheltered walkway for shoppers and a new guest services suite, further enhancing the customer experience.

Alastair Coulson, Managing Director at Lotus Property said: “The current economic climate and the unknown entity that is Brexit has weighed heavy on the retail industry in the past 12 months, bringing with it a domino effect of closures from top retailers such as M&S, House of Fraser, Mothercare and Toys R Us - to name just a few. It’s not all doom and gloom for the retail industry this month though. At Lotus we have strived to stay positive and continued to push forward with our development and redevelopment plans at many of our retail destinations, no more so than at The Boulevard in Banbridge, located between Belfast and Dublin.

“We are always focused on enhancing the shopper experience, really understanding what they want and have undertaken extensive customer research to ensure we can roll this out to create the perfect environment to maximise growth.”

The Boulevard has had a consistent increase in footfall since Lotus purchased the scheme in May 2016, with a 22% footfall increase from May 2016 to May 2018, cementing its position as Northern Ireland’s only premium outlet shopping destination.

For more information on The Boulevard and its many leading brands visit www.the-boulevard.co.uk, facebook.com/theboulevardbanbridge, instagram.com/theboulevardbanbridge or follow @theboulevardni on Twitter.