Record Christmas trade: Consumers opt for convenience shopping and dining at travel hubs as high street habits change

Tuesday 20 Jan 2015

Record Christmas trade: Consumers opt for convenience shopping and dining at travel hubs as high street habits change

Region & Route:: National

Christmas retail trading (29 November to 27 December 2014) at Network Rail’s 18 managed stations was the busiest on record growing 15.8%, with like-for-like sales growing by 10.7%, according to figures just released by the rail operator.

This contrasts sharply with the BRC-Nielsen Shop Price Index which recorded growth of only 2.6% for the 5-week period.

The data indicates consumers' appetites for convenience shopping and dining at travel hubs is growing, as their high street habits continue to change.

Managing Director of Network Rail Property, David Biggs, said the incredible figures are a result of an increased focus on creating stations that are destinations, not just places to get from A to B.

“Our strategy is to listen to our customers and put them at the heart of everything we do.

“We’re bringing retailers to our stations that give customers what they want in the time they have available and our results are showing this strategy is working.

“At Christmas time in particular, when people are balancing work and home life, our stations offer the right mix of retail options and food and beverage offers to complement the high street,” he said.

Iconic London station King’s Cross was the best performing across the network with Christmas period sales growth of almost 50 per cent. Stations outside of London also mirrored the festive trend with Glasgow and Birmingham growing by 26 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.

Director of Retail – Network Rail Property, Hamish Kiernan, said the boom Christmas period added to a successful year for the station retail sector, highlighted by some significant top-line figures.

“The numbers as a whole are staggering; almost 850 million people visited our stations in 2014 and of those people, over 34% chose to visit one of our retail units. That’s around 289 million people, a significant rise of over 13% compared to 2013.

‘It’s a very positive time in the station retail sector and we have a number of plans and projects ready to create even better environments for our customers in 2015,” Hamish said.

Christmas numbers at a glance (29 November to 27 December 2014)

Sales growth

Top stations

King’s Cross
Glasgow
Euston
Birmingham
Paddington

Average total sales growth +15.83%

Like-for-like sales increase

Top stations

Birmingham
Glasgow
Liverpool Lime Street
Euston
King’s Cross

Best performing categories

Bread
Retail Services
Clothing
Pubs & Bars
Cards & Stationary

Like-for-like sales increase +10.76%

Notes to editors

Network Rail

Reinvests all profits from commercial activities into rail infrastructure.
During the five year period which ended on 31 March 2014, generated £1.4bn from commercial activities for re-investment in its rail estate. This is enough to transform Birmingham New Street or King’s Cross station, or put in place 5,000km of new railway.
Has over 510,000 sq ft of retail space at 18 of the largest stations across the country, showcasing many leading high-street brands.
Is also the country's largest provider of commercial property to small and medium sized businesses, with over 7,000 properties nationwide.
Works in partnership to develop railway land and property no longer required for operational use, including multi-million pound commercial schemes above our station at Birmingham New Street and joint ventures with the likes of Ballymore, Bloc, Kier and The Office Group.
Owns and manages 18 of Britain’s biggest and busiest stations (as well as managing St Pancras International on behalf of HS1 Ltd).

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About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.