Testing the Market
With the opening of Westfield Stratford City (a rather posh name for a bunch of former railway sidings) people to the east of London now have three large shopping centres within a relatively small area (the other two being Lakeside and Bluewater).
Theoretically this is all well and good: more competition, more choice etc (or as much choice is possible once all the major retailers have taken up residence). There is however one area in which this new store is different from the other two: car parking.
Or, to be exact, car parking charges.
You see, neither Bluewater or Lakeside, both of whom boost that they have 13,000 spaces, charge customers to park. Westfield on the other hand, with a mere 5,000, spaces will be charging visitors. Anyone leaving a car there for more than 2 hours can currently expect a £2 charge with prices increasing to £26 for more than 12 hours. This is without worrying about the £7.50 surcharge for losing your ticket.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if my nearest rivals weren’t charging for parking, I’d think twice before I did so myself as I’d be sure that such a move would make potential visitors consider going elsewhere.
If I were a car owner and I was thinking of spending the day shopping*, would I choose to go to somewhere that is going to charge me £8 for the privilege or somewhere that doesn’t. Personally I’d go with the latter.
Yes, it is entirely possible that these charges are set solely to dissuade commuters from leaving their cars there of a morning (5,000 isn’t that many spaces) but why then set the entry barrier so low as to charge those only going to see a film or have dinner?
All in all it seems like a rather curious decision to me and I’d be interested to see what effect it does (or doesn’t) have on visitor numbers.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if my nearest rivals weren’t charging for parking, I’d think twice before I did so myself as I’d be sure that such a move would make potential visitors consider going elsewhere.
They charge of course, MG, because:
1. They can get away with it;
2. Bloodymindedness;
3. Greed;
4. All of the above.
Assuming that they own the land and not an arm of the State, then they are perfectly entitled to do whatever they want in maximising their income. All I’m questioning is the logic behind it given that no other shopping mall that I’ve ever visited (and I’ll confess it isn’t a long list) does so. In terms of setting yourself apart from the crowd this would appear to be a very silly way of going about it.
several years ago I parked within sight (300 yards?) of one of Europe’s greatest cultural sites – the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Feeding the parking meter I realsied that this cost less than parking in Crawley’s County Mall. Obviously Crawley is one hell of a rip off!
This cynic in me says this-
One of the problems for Westfield in having a flash new shopping centre in a poor part of town is that you might attract a lot of poor people. This bad because a) poor people don’t have any money your stuff; and b) people with money who might want to buy your stuff don’t want to hang out with poor people.
To sumarise, charging high prices helps keeps away the poor people which helps keep the rich people happy happy shoppy shoppy.
Edit – that should read “don’t have any money to buy your stuff”.
…Maybe Westfield’s accessibility by public transport and proximity to (affluent) London means that those who *do* opt to come by car will have fewer qualms about coughing up for parking.
As the (affluent) south east already has, as I mentioned, Lakeside and Bluewater – both of which are accessible by public transport and don’t charge for car-parking – I doubt it. Indeed, a dislike of paying parking charges (exorbitant or otherwise) is part of the reason that many town centres are dying in favour of out of town places like Lakeside, Bluewater etc.
My home town tried to charge for parking in its high street car park once. It hurt the local traders and many of the residents (my family included) either didn’t pay or participated in wide scale ticket reuse. Eventually the council saw sense and scrapped the idea.
“Yes, it is entirely possible that these charges are set solely to dissuade commuters from leaving their cars there of a morning…”
But that could be alleviated by redeeming the parking fee if you spent £X in any of the shops.
That would be perfectly sensible idea, works in other places but doesn’t appear to be an option here.