Heading out of town

Although less harrowing for most, visiting the optician is much like a trip to the dentist: both require an appointment, an examination and if treatment is required, a repeat visit.
Bearing these similarities in mind, it is hard to understand why opticians have grown in concentration in town and city centres, rarely straying from the high street where there may be three or four of the multiples within a quarter of a mile.
Many traditional retailers, like Clarks, HMV, Next and Clintons are leaving the high street and taking units on edge-of-town 'shed' developments. No longer the preserve of downmarket DIY and electrical superstores, these parks are accessible and easy to fit out.
Mark Stirling at Pillar Property, the UK's largest manager of retail parks says: 'The edge of town development offers free parking and more usable space. The problem with the high street is that you have to accept a compromise. Many of the units are old and carry a legacy of different uses. 'Treatment rooms have to be crammed in odd corners, or upstairs. Out of town, you can offer all your wares on one level, which can be a square box. It's much easier to fit out, with a clean footprint and straight walls.'
A handful of chain operators tested the edge-of-town option in the 1980s, including Miller and Sandhouse (now part of Boots) and Dollond & Aitchison. D&A still operates two stand-alone units with car parking: the Eyeland Superstore in Yardley, Birmingham and The Hyde on Edgware Road in Colindale, North London. But the departure was a failure for Miller and Sandhouse. It was unable to achieve the high sales volumes needed to operate from a huge warehouse unit with high fixed costs. Stirling admits that, with less footfall, an outlet on an edge of town park will not make the sales of a similar business on the high street.
'Shopping parks tend to be Òdestination,Ó so the average spend is higher, but they offer less footfall than the high street. You're looking at 80 per cent of the sales of a commensurate business on the high street,' he adds.
But Pillar Property predicts that out-of-town sales will continue to grow faster than total retail spending over the next five years. Developers are seeking to increase customer footfall, dwell time and loyalty with innovations like the landmark 'Pod', a feature of Capital & Regional's The Junction retail park in Hull, the first of 18 to be rolled out in the next year. The 17m-tall Pod combines leisure, retail and entertainment facilities, with a Silver Trek Outdoor Sports Centre, a dry cleaners, Starbucks and an 11m climbing wall. Other features of the Junction include covered walkways and branded signage. Capital & Regional says the Pod will 'revolutionise' the modern-day retail park.
Pillar Property's The Fort retail park, outside Birmingham offers shoppers a range of retail choice that goes way beyond the usual shed development, with tenants including Oasis, WH Smith, Early Learning Centre and Warehouse.
'They are attracted by the improved flexibility and cost-effectiveness offered by out of town units, with the added benefit of being able to exploit a mezzanine floor space, which improves total sales for no additional retail costs,' says Stirling.

Boots leads the way
With the Government's planning strategy focused on developing in town rather than around it, developers have to pull out all the stops to prove to local authorities that there are significant benefits to be accrued to the locality by granting planning consent for a retail park. Good quality schemes have to offer the shopper a depth of retail choice, improved transport links and leisure amenities. In turn they promise the tenants higher footfall and a longer dwell time.
Boots Opticians told optician (July 18 2003) that it was planning to relocate more practices to edge of town locations. Managing director Norman Usher said that boosting the presence of Boots Opticians in edge-of-town shopping parks would help give the 300-strong optical chain an edge over its rivals on the high street.
'As with Boots Group we will be closing some of the smaller practices in town and re-locating to higher traffic areas, like edge of town because we think that's where a lot of customers are going generally and also as an in-plant within a bigger store it's easier for us to do this than our competitors. We can move to where the customers are going ahead of our competition. You'll be seeing that start to happen in a couple of months,' he said at the time. Indeed, Beckton in London saw such a Boots venture open last month.
The group currently trades from 75 edge of town properties and intends to open 20 more outlets by April 2004. In total, Boots will spend some £33m on these sites in 2003-04, compared to £2m during 2002-03.
Bob Hughes at the Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians says that Boots is following a significant trend in shopping behaviour by taking practice to the town edge, but adds that the size of units of retail parks is prohibitively large for most operators.
'Patients like to be able to park, so it's good for some opticians, but in general you're talking about big units,' he says. 'Many out of town supermarkets have got opticians in-store, Costco has 17 units, Asda 40, and Tesco around 20, so it's happening already, and before Asda set up their own departments, they leased them to independents.'
Hughes adds that continued consolidation and expansion of multiples within the industry could lead to a handful of firms being able to operate from these large premises profitably.
Black & Lizars, which has 19 practices in Scotland and Northern Ireland, is building a 4,000sq ft stand-alone flagship store in Giffnock, on the south side of Glasgow. Chairman Colin Black says the firm had been looking for a large site in the area with car parking for 'several years'. Once operational it will be the largest commercial practice for the group. 'With the opening of this new, state-of-the-art practice in an out-of-town location, we are providing a new level of optical practice in Scotland Ð really a centre of excellence for eye care. We are pleased to be offering Black & Lizars quality optical service in a new location that will be very accessible for our patients in the south side of Glasgow. Giffnock is a suburb of Glasgow which is well served by public transport and easily reached by car Ð the practice is on a main road and we have dedicated parking.'
But operators do not have to think big to relocate to the edge of town. Pod units at the Junction parks will start at just 500 sq ft.
An alternative to the destination development, is the secondary shopping centre. In residential areas with plentiful parking, small parades of shops attract the loyalty of regular custom, as well as passing and destination trade.
Melanie Chilvers, proprietor of Coe, Costa & Moore, operated a busy practice in the centre of Norwich city centre and says that relocating to the suburbs was the best thing she ever did. 'In Norwich we had all the multiples within a quarter of a mile, and were under constant pressure to match their offers. When our lease came up for renewal, we decided to move out to the edge of town,' she says.
Coe, Costa and Moore now has two practices on the edge of Norwich. One operates from one half of a pair of semi-detached houses on an arterial road that leads to the centre of town. The front garden forms a car park.
'The accessibility is such an advantage,' says Chilvers. 'Around 60 per cent of our patient base is over 50, and these customers really appreciate that they can be dropped off at the door.'
To make up for the drop in lunch-hour trade from moving out of the city centre, Chilvers canvassed the businesses on a nearby industrial estate, offering discounts on eye tests and safety spectacles for employees.

Quality time
Hammond & Dummer has two out-of-town practices, strategically located in the business district in Milton Keynes and the 'designer area' in Solihull. Owner Marilyn Dummer says: 'Our patients certainly seem to like the fact that we are away from the busy shopping areas. Many comment on how pleasurable it is to have peace and tranquillity in the practice. In Milton Keynes there are parking bays directly outside the practice which patients find particularly helpful.
'Our locations are such that when customers come into the practice they are usually seriously looking for spectacles, rather than shoppers who may just be killing time,' she adds. 'This means that we are able to spend more time with people giving them informed advice and choices and I believe we give them exceptionally high standards of customer service as a result.'
When she established the Milton Keynes practice, research showed Dummer that it was not essential to be in the centre of town. 'People generally make a decision to have their eyes tested and they make an appointment Ð it is not something they tend to do on impulse,' she says. 'We do not therefore necessarily believe that it is essential to be in the middle of a shopping centre, indeed we believe that easy accessibility for patients is more important.'
Hammond & Dummer has an ongoing local marketing campaign in both practice areas to increase awareness and generate new business. But Dummer adds: 'There is no question that irrespective of our location our biggest source of leads is referrals.'
Some practices are firmly rooted in the high street. David Clulow relies on heavy footfall and does not seek to attract customers for whom accessibility is an issue. 'We are too upmarket and expensive to attract the elderly or families,' explains operations director Ayis Virides. 'Our core market is between 18 and 55.'
Clulow's core range of designer sunglasses integrates it well with the regenerated high street and the group has opened a number of small outlets selling sunglasses and sports eyewear, with a limited optical offering.
So is the way forward to set up practice on the edge of town and leave the saturated high street to a hardcore of specialist operators? FODO's Bob Hughes warns against 'reading the trend in black and white'. 'In a highly competitive market, people will look for new opportunities wherever they may be.'
Ironically, the exodus of major players, such as Next and Boots, from the high street to modern retail parks is creating opportunities in some core shopping areas. 'Institutional landlords are following the multiple retailers and pulling away from the high street,' says commercial property consultant Ben Page. 'The rental market is contracting, so prospective tenants no longer need the strong covenants required by the pension funds. This means that terms are not as onerous for the small independent operator.'Although less harrowing for most, visiting the optician is much like a trip to the dentist: both require an appointment, an examination and if treatment is required, a repeat visit.
Bearing these similarities in mind, it is hard to understand why opticians have grown in concentration in town and city centres, rarely straying from the high street where there may be three or four of the multiples within a quarter of a mile.
Many traditional retailers, like Clarks, HMV, Next and Clintons are leaving the high street and taking units on edge-of-town 'shed' developments. No longer the preserve of downmarket DIY and electrical superstores, these parks are accessible and easy to fit out.
Mark Stirling at Pillar Property, the UK's largest manager of retail parks says: 'The edge of town development offers free parking and more usable space. The problem with the high street is that you have to accept a compromise. Many of the units are old and carry a legacy of different uses. 'Treatment rooms have to be crammed in odd corners, or upstairs. Out of town, you can offer all your wares on one level, which can be a square box. It's much easier to fit out, with a clean footprint and straight walls.'
A handful of chain operators tested the edge-of-town option in the 1980s, including Miller and Sandhouse (now part of Boots) and Dollond & Aitchison. D&A still operates two stand-alone units with car parking: the Eyeland Superstore in Yardley, Birmingham and The Hyde on Edgware Road in Colindale, North London. But the departure was a failure for Miller and Sandhouse. It was unable to achieve the high sales volumes needed to operate from a huge warehouse unit with high fixed costs. Stirling admits that, with less footfall, an outlet on an edge of town park will not make the sales of a similar business on the high street.
'Shopping parks tend to be Òdestination,Ó so the average spend is higher, but they offer less footfall than the high street. You're looking at 80 per cent of the sales of a commensurate business on the high street,' he adds.
But Pillar Property predicts that out-of-town sales will continue to grow faster than total retail spending over the next five years. Developers are seeking to increase customer footfall, dwell time and loyalty with innovations like the landmark 'Pod', a feature of Capital & Regional's The Junction retail park in Hull, the first of 18 to be rolled out in the next year. The 17m-tall Pod combines leisure, retail and entertainment facilities, with a Silver Trek Outdoor Sports Centre, a dry cleaners, Starbucks and an 11m climbing wall. Other features of the Junction include covered walkways and branded signage. Capital & Regional says the Pod will 'revolutionise' the modern-day retail park.
Pillar Property's The Fort retail park, outside Birmingham offers shoppers a range of retail choice that goes way beyond the usual shed development, with tenants including Oasis, WH Smith, Early Learning Centre and Warehouse.
'They are attracted by the improved flexibility and cost-effectiveness offered by out of town units, with the added benefit of being able to exploit a mezzanine floor space, which improves total sales for no additional retail costs,' says Stirling.

Boots leads the way
With the Government's planning strategy focused on developing in town rather than around it, developers have to pull out all the stops to prove to local authorities that there are significant benefits to be accrued to the locality by granting planning consent for a retail park. Good quality schemes have to offer the shopper a depth of retail choice, improved transport links and leisure amenities. In turn they promise the tenants higher footfall and a longer dwell time.
Boots Opticians told optician (July 18 2003) that it was planning to relocate more practices to edge of town locations. Managing director Norman Usher said that boosting the presence of Boots Opticians in edge-of-town shopping parks would help give the 300-strong optical chain an edge over its rivals on the high street.
'As with Boots Group we will be closing some of the smaller practices in town and re-locating to higher traffic areas, like edge of town because we think that's where a lot of customers are going generally and also as an in-plant within a bigger store it's easier for us to do this than our competitors. We can move to where the customers are going ahead of our competition. You'll be seeing that start to happen in a couple of months,' he said at the time. Indeed, Beckton in London saw such a Boots venture open last month.
The group currently trades from 75 edge of town properties and intends to open 20 more outlets by April 2004. In total, Boots will spend some £33m on these sites in 2003-04, compared to £2m during 2002-03.
Bob Hughes at the Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians says that Boots is following a significant trend in shopping behaviour by taking practice to the town edge, but adds that the size of units of retail parks is prohibitively large for most operators.
'Patients like to be able to park, so it's good for some opticians, but in general you're talking about big units,' he says. 'Many out of town supermarkets have got opticians in-store, Costco has 17 units, Asda 40, and Tesco around 20, so it's happening already, and before Asda set up their own departments, they leased them to independents.'
Hughes adds that continued consolidation and expansion of multiples within the industry could lead to a handful of firms being able to operate from these large premises profitably.
Black & Lizars, which has 19 practices in Scotland and Northern Ireland, is building a 4,000sq ft stand-alone flagship store in Giffnock, on the south side of Glasgow. Chairman Colin Black says the firm had been looking for a large site in the area with car parking for 'several years'. Once operational it will be the largest commercial practice for the group. 'With the opening of this new, state-of-the-art practice in an out-of-town location, we are providing a new level of optical practice in Scotland Ð really a centre of excellence for eye care. We are pleased to be offering Black & Lizars quality optical service in a new location that will be very accessible for our patients in the south side of Glasgow. Giffnock is a suburb of Glasgow which is well served by public transport and easily reached by car Ð the practice is on a main road and we have dedicated parking.'
But operators do not have to think big to relocate to the edge of town. Pod units at the Junction parks will start at just 500 sq ft.
An alternative to the destination development, is the secondary shopping centre. In residential areas with plentiful parking, small parades of shops attract the loyalty of regular custom, as well as passing and destination trade.
Melanie Chilvers, proprietor of Coe, Costa & Moore, operated a busy practice in the centre of Norwich city centre and says that relocating to the suburbs was the best thing she ever did. 'In Norwich we had all the multiples within a quarter of a mile, and were under constant pressure to match their offers. When our lease came up for renewal, we decided to move out to the edge of town,' she says.
Coe, Costa and Moore now has two practices on the edge of Norwich. One operates from one half of a pair of semi-detached houses on an arterial road that leads to the centre of town. The front garden forms a car park.
'The accessibility is such an advantage,' says Chilvers. 'Around 60 per cent of our patient base is over 50, and these customers really appreciate that they can be dropped off at the door.'
To make up for the drop in lunch-hour trade from moving out of the city centre, Chilvers canvassed the businesses on a nearby industrial estate, offering discounts on eye tests and safety spectacles for employees.

Quality time
Hammond & Dummer has two out-of-town practices, strategically located in the business district in Milton Keynes and the 'designer area' in Solihull. Owner Marilyn Dummer says: 'Our patients certainly seem to like the fact that we are away from the busy shopping areas. Many comment on how pleasurable it is to have peace and tranquillity in the practice. In Milton Keynes there are parking bays directly outside the practice which patients find particularly helpful.
'Our locations are such that when customers come into the practice they are usually seriously looking for spectacles, rather than shoppers who may just be killing time,' she adds. 'This means that we are able to spend more time with people giving them informed advice and choices and I believe we give them exceptionally high standards of customer service as a result.'
When she established the Milton Keynes practice, research showed Dummer that it was not essential to be in the centre of town. 'People generally make a decision to have their eyes tested and they make an appointment Ð it is not something they tend to do on impulse,' she says. 'We do not therefore necessarily believe that it is essential to be in the middle of a shopping centre, indeed we believe that easy accessibility for patients is more important.'
Hammond & Dummer has an ongoing local marketing campaign in both practice areas to increase awareness and generate new business. But Dummer adds: 'There is no question that irrespective of our location our biggest source of leads is referrals.'
Some practices are firmly rooted in the high street. David Clulow relies on heavy footfall and does not seek to attract customers for whom accessibility is an issue. 'We are too upmarket and expensive to attract the elderly or families,' explains operations director Ayis Virides. 'Our core market is between 18 and 55.'
Clulow's core range of designer sunglasses integrates it well with the regenerated high street and the group has opened a number of small outlets selling sunglasses and sports eyewear, with a limited optical offering.
So is the way forward to set up practice on the edge of town and leave the saturated high street to a hardcore of specialist operators? FODO's Bob Hughes warns against 'reading the trend in black and white'. 'In a highly competitive market, people will look for new opportunities wherever they may be.'
Ironically, the exodus of major players, such as Next and Boots, from the high street to modern retail parks is creating opportunities in some core shopping areas. 'Institutional landlords are following the multiple retailers and pulling away from the high street,' says commercial property consultant Ben Page. 'The rental market is contracting, so prospective tenants no longer need the strong covenants required by the pension funds. This means that terms are not as onerous for the small independent operator.'