LONDON – Business at The Bicester Village Shopping Collection hasn’t returned to normal post-pandemic – and Scott Malkin couldn’t be happier.
The group, which counts 11 luxury outlet villages in England, Ireland, Continental Europe and China, said it has witnessed the quality of sales improve since lockdown ended, and seen further proof of its retail-as-hospitality concept.
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Similar to what luxury brands experienced as they navigated the various worldwide lockdowns, BVSC saw sales shift to the digital sphere and a big uptick in spending from the local customer base.
“There is no return to normal,” said Malkin, founder and chairman of BVSC’s parent Value Retail. He added that the business has, over the past 18 months, become more sophisticated and rigorous in terms of its approach to customer acquisition and experience – and its relationship with the brands.
Priorities have changed: Malkin believes that open-air shopping today has a new appeal in the post-pandemic world, with customers seeing the villages as out-of-town “oases of comfort and welcome.”
That’s why he believes it’s more important than ever to deliver a polished offer to visitors, and to work as closely as possible with the brands to ensure that the inventory and merchandising are top notch. Indeed, the company continues to pitch itself to brands as a “full-price customer acquisition platform,” rather than a place to park out-of-season stock.
To that end, Value Retail has made a series of key hires in the past month from big brands including Gucci, Burberry, La Rinascente and Ermenegildo Zegna.
They include Monica Marsilli, formerly vice president and global general merchandise manager of Gucci and buying and merchandising director at La Rinascente, and Paul Price, formerly chief merchandise officer at Burberry and executive vice president of Lucky Brand Jeans.
Value Retail has also taken on Franck Collin, former managing director at DFS, merchandise director at the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton Group, and Guillaume Desjardins who was previously global customer experience director of Givenchy, and customer experience director of Europe for Ralph Lauren.
According to the company, sales growth through the summer and into the early autumn has been accelerating, while the average transaction value across the collection is up by 13 percent compared with 2019.
Villages including La Vallée in France; Maasmechelen in Belgium; Wertheim and Ingolstadt in Germany, and Kildare in Ireland have seen their spend-per-visit rise by between 25 and 32 percent compared with 2019.