Westfield reinvents togetherness

Anna Korólczyk-Lewandowska ‘Eurobuild CEE’: You have recently introduced your Westfield brand to mainland Europe and the Arkadia centre in Warsaw has now officially become Westfield Arkadia. Why?

Arnaud Burlin, managing director for Central Europe, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield: Yes, following the acquisition of the Westfield Group, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has decided to leverage the Westfield brand to take our flagship shopping centres to the next level. Westfield is the only global B2B and B2C brand when it comes to retail, leisure, entertainment and dining destinations. It’s already a signature brand for the most iconic centres, which include Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City in London, Westfield Century City and Westfield UTC in California and Westfield World Trade Center in New York City. The aim of these changes is to reinforce the centres through the value of the Westfield name. By doing so, we can have the best of both worlds: an international brand and the centres’ own very strong existing local identities. This launch of the brand in ten shopping destinations is just the first wave: the roll-out will continue in 2020 and into 2021.

What are the future plans of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield for Poland?

It’s crucially important in our industry to always be able to adapt to customers’ increasing expectations, particularly in terms of the quality of the service, the level of comfort, the variety of the restaurants and the need for even more of the latest technology. That’s a constant challenge for us. We are focused on long term investment and the permanent development of our centres. We want to create better places that are a delight to visit, where people can meet up, connect, do their shopping and have memorable experiences together. We’re aware of the fact that emotions have a big impact on consumers in our modern world. That’s why we are focused on experiential retail and the creation of a future global brand.

It was 11 years ago that you joined Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. How do you think the shopping centre market has changed in Central Europe since then? And how do you assess the current state of the market?

It’s changed a lot. The urban context of most of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s assets has evolved significantly over the last ten years. People now expect vibrant places that combine, among others, shopping, leisure, food & beverage and coworking space. URW’s teams have built up the right skills and experience to meet these needs and expectations. As an example we are seeing an active shift in the offer in our centres. Some categories, such as hypermarkets and DIY, are reducing their gla and optimising their sales areas. At the same time, to satisfy new consumers’ needs, we have increased dining and entertainment as well as health & beauty, sport and outdoor areas. Recently we have doubled the dining space and increased the leisure in many of our centres. Dining and recreation now represent close to 15 pct of our new development projects. A shopping centre is a living entity. The right strategy is not to have the most locations but to have the best. Our ultimate goal is to create shopping centres that are places full of life, while reinventing the notion of being together and well-integrated with the local community.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has been very active recently in Poland – and especially in Warsaw.

Poland is doing very well, with 4.4 pct GDP growth, if I’m not mistaken. Poland is a very dynamic country, the economy has been growing rapidly for many years. The demand for consumption has evolved, however it still continues to grow. To give you an example, when we were opening Wroclavia in central Wrocław two years ago, our objective was to deliver the right project that fulfilled customers’ needs, with a super convenient shopping destination and a diverse dining offer. Whenever we have a new and interesting project, it confirms that people appreciate modern shopping facilities.

What is the Polish retail market like compared to the rest of Europe?

When I try to compare Polish consumers to those of other European nations, I can see that they very much appreciate the value added to the brand, such as the free high-level services, the above-standard comfort, the special offers for regular clients, and so on. My perception is that in Poland we are very open to innovations and international brands, like Victoria Secret, Huawei and many others. With the Westfield brand and the international leasing platform we are even better positioned to attract more global players to our market.

E-commerce is having a major impact on retail. People are leaving the offline world to go online in increasing numbers, preferring not to leave their homes to do their shopping. What are you doing to keep them in your centres?

I would rather say that the online and offline worlds are increasingly overlapping each other all the time and together provide a full omnichannel experience for the customer and better value for retailers. Brick-and-mortar stores enhance the customer experience and their value is increasing due to the so called ‘halo effect’. A recent study showed that there is a 37 pct average uplift in web traffic in catchment when a brick-and-mortar store opens as well as an average 12 pct increase in online sales. Irrespective of how online sales penetration grows, physical retail is essential to create and maintain the emotional link between the brand and its loyal consumers. On top of that, e-commerce still represents a minority of total sales and there are still many questions about the profitability or otherwise of this business model.

What do you need to offer customers to persuade them to go to the mall instead of doing everything with a couple of clicks on a smartphone?

The growth of e-commerce is also opening up opportunities for our business and is driving customers and retailers into our centres. What we are experiencing is the convergence of digital and physical retail. The latest evolution we can see happening is that digitally native vertical brands are extending their operations to brick-and-mortar stores. Even Amazon, Apple and Nespresso, which previously could only do their retailing through third parties or via the internet, have realised that human contact gives them the opportunity to tell their story in a major retail centre, so they are now opening stores in them. And DNVB stores mostly open in flagship destinations, such as those owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. Our role is, therefore, to accompany and encourage the movement of brands but also to rethink all of our centres. It’s necessary to ensure a rotation of concepts to offer new brands and new concepts each year.

What other challenges are the Polish and European markets facing and how can they be overcome?

Both the retail landscape and consumers’ expectations are evolving at an unprecedented pace: people expect an experience and are increasingly focused on environmental issues. In this changing environment for retail, shopping is no longer enough. Therefore what we are creating are exceptional destinations for our guests. Our aim is to develop places that are preferred by both brands and their customers. We are concentrating our efforts in prime locations where we provide a distinctive experience to both retailers and consumers in attractive shopping destinations. We can offer: high quality services, such as in Wroclavia; the best dining experience, as we provide in Westfield Arkadia; and extraordinary events, like the concerts by Clean Bandit and the well-received Designer Gallery in Galeria Mokotów. And that’s without even mentioning our cooperation with such companies as Disney or Vogue. We are committed to innovating in order to constantly enhance the consumer’s journey, to ensure their satisfaction, provide them with the best omnichannel experience (with our loyalty programme, centre app, click & collect services, and so on). On top of that, we are implementing the Better Places 2030 programme aimed at reducing our carbon footprint by 50 pct. And, last but not least, we are capitalising on our famous international Westfield brand, which is admired by both retailers and customers. We are passionate about keeping our centres on the move, creating better places for enjoyable shopping and entertainment as well as for sharing time and wonderful experiences.