Even the best performing shopping centres in the world have room to elevate their customer experiences.

Value Retail is the developer and operator of a boutique collection of ten luxury outlet shopping villages in Europe’s most important luxury and fashion markets, as well as in China.

The 11 villages of the Bicester Collection, which include the eponymous Bicester Village (London), La Vallée Village (Paris) and Fidenza Village (Milan), are widely recognised as the best performing shopping centres – as measured by sales densities – in the world.

Although the company has redefined the luxury outlet shopping model in Europe and China, Luxury Branding was engaged to help elevate the customer experience even further.

Our contribution began with a comprehensive visitor experience audit.

A series of 40 critical touchpoints were identified and assigned a unique set of evaluation critera or ‘Key Experience Indicators’. These were then independently judged at each of the nine European Villages. A comprehensive audit report was then prepared, which pinpointed a number of ‘quick wins’ to be implemented at individual village level as well as identifying a smaller number of strategic initiatives that would benefit the group as a whole.

We have also been working with Value Retail to foster a culture of greater hospitableness within the real estate and retail teams, educating everybody inside the company and working within the boutiques themselves that they are in the experience business not that of brick and mortar or even product.

Our partnership with Value Retail continued as an advisor on their strategic marketing plans and as a designer and facilitator of both internal and external events.