Soult's Retail View

Victoria’s Secret heading to Newcastle’s Monument Mall – if Hammerson’s posters are to be believed

Graham Soult March 05, 2013 Property, Shopping Centres 5 Comments

Tags: Armani Exchange, Bose, Fenwick, Hammerson, Hugo Boss, Jamie's Italian, Kiehl's, Metrocentre, Monument Mall, Newcastle, Space.NK, TK Maxx, Victoria's Secret

Poster showing Victoria’s Secret at Monument Mall, Newcastle (3 Mar 2013)

Newcastle is set to host one of the UK’s first branches of US lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret – if new posters around Hammerson’s Monument Mall development are to be believed.

Following the opening of the scheme’s new TK Maxx store last Thursday (28 February), posters featuring updated artist’s impressions of … Continue Reading

Cladding goes up on Newcastle’s Primark as new city centre developments take shape

Graham Soult November 03, 2012 Property, Shopping Centres 5 Comments

Tags: Armani Exchange, Barclays, Cath Kidston, Central Arcade, CEX, Eldon Square, Fenwick, Grainger Street, Hammerson, Jamie's Italian, Jones Bootmaker, Kurt Geiger, L'Occitane en Provence, Monument Mall, Newcastle, Northumberland Street, Office, Primark, Sainsbury's, Sainsbury's Local, Start Fitness, Tiso, TJ Hughes, TK Maxx

Primark, Newcastle (30 Oct 2012)

The outside of Newcastle’s enlarged Primark is finally starting to gain its funky cladding, as the Northumberland Street store gets ready for its planned opening.

Since I last updated on the project at the end of July, the exterior of the building has changed … Continue Reading

Newcastle roundup: retail lettings remain active as Cath Kidston signs and Office expands

Graham Soult August 20, 2012 Property, Shopping Centres, Specialist Retailers 3 Comments

Tags: Armani Exchange, Berrys, Blue Inc, Carphone Warehouse, Cath Kidston, Fenwick, Hammerson, Jaeger, Jamie's Italian, Jessops, L'Occitane en Provence, Monument Mall, O2, Office, Peacocks, TK Maxx, Zara

Cath Kidston, St Ives, Cornwall (20 Feb 2011)

Cath Kidston is to open a standalone store in Newcastle city centre, it has been revealed.

The upmarket clothing, accessories, bags and homeware retailer – famous for its floral prints and patterns – has signed for the unit at 136-138 Grainger Street, opposite Urban Outfitters, which currently houses the footwear brand Office.

L’Occitane en Provence heads to Newcastle’s Eldon Square

Graham Soult August 07, 2012 Overseas, Property, Shopping Centres, Specialist Retailers 7 Comments

Tags: Bled, Bristol, Clifton, Currys, Eldon Square, Fenwick, Hotter Shoes, Jo Malone, L'Occitane en Provence, Ljubljana, Love Forever, Lush, Metrocentre, Music Zone, Newcastle, Rebel Rebel, Sanderson Weatherall, Slovenia, The White Company

L’Occitane shop in Mestni trg, Ljubljana, Slovenia (26 Jul 2011)

L’Occitane en Provence, the upmarket beauty products retailer, is to open a standalone shop in Newcastle’s Eldon Square next month.

Details of the September store opening – which were … Continue Reading

Twenty-one North East stores close immediately as Game collapses

Graham Soult March 26, 2012 Financial, Online, Property, Specialist Retailers 1 Comment

Tags: Ashington, Bishop Auckland, Cramlington, Durham, Fenwick, Game, Gamestation, Grainger Games, Hartlepool, HMV, Ian Shepherd, Jarrow, Metrocentre, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, North Shields, Peacocks, Peterlee, PwC, RBS, Redcar, South Shields, Stockton-on-Tees, Sunderland, Washington

Game in Sunderland's High Street West - now closed (13 Mar 2012)

Twenty-one Game and Gamestation shops in the North East are among the 277 stores that have closed immediately following Game Group’s collapse into administration this morning.

While the administrator, PwC, … Continue Reading

Celebrating Britain’s indie department stores: Atkinsons, Banburys and Barkers

Graham Soult March 04, 2012 Department Stores, Independent Stores, Market Towns, Retail History, Social Media 7 Comments

Tags: Atkinsons, Banburys, Barkers, Browns of York, Eastmond's, Facebook, Fenwick, Gainsborough, Northallerton, Sheffield, Tiverton, Twitter, York

Browns' iconic York store (17 Jul 2010)

Among all the retail gloom that the newspapers seem to like writing about, it was refreshing to read last week that Browns of York is to open a new department store in Gainsborough, with the creation of … Continue Reading

Putting today’s John Lewis sales drop in perspective

Graham Soult January 28, 2011 Department Stores, Financial No Comments

Tags: Bristol, Cambridge, Cribbs Causeway, Debenhams, Eldon Square, Fenwick, Harvey Nichols, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Joplings, Leicester, London, Newcastle, Oxford Street, Selfridges, St Andrew's Way

John Lewis Oxford Street, London

Given how long it’s been since the weekly trading figures for John Lewis department stores last recorded a year-on-year fall in sales, it’s little wonder that the 2.2% sales drop announced today seems to be … Continue Reading

Newcastle update: Wooly Minded and Card Factory open; Bank on the way

Graham Soult July 25, 2010 Fashion Stores, Independent Stores, Property 6 Comments

Tags: Bank, Card Factory, Clayton Street, Fenwick, Foot Locker, Henleys, JD, Lipsy, Newcastle, Northumberland Street, Paul's Boutique, Priceless Shoes, Superdry, Wooly Minded

Wooly Minded, Clayton Street, Newcastle (24 Jul 2010)

Passing through Newcastle city centre yesterday afternoon, I was able to see what was happening with several incoming stores that I’ve blogged about previously.

In Clayton Street, Wooly Minded has now been trading for a week or two, and indeed features the palette of flying sheep, lime green and … Continue Reading

Newcastle’s Wooly Minded store opening – more details about “the knitter’s paradise”

Graham Soult June 18, 2010 Independent Stores, Specialist Retailers 3 Comments

Tags: Fenwick, John Lewis, Newcastle, North Shields, South Shields, Wooly Minded

Wool display in the North Shields Wooly Minded (18 Jun 2010)

My coverage of the upcoming Wooly Minded store in Newcastle’s Clayton Street seems to have prompted quite a bit of interest on Twitter, so – never one to shy away from a retail challenge – I thought I’d dig around a little further.

Given … Continue Reading

Card Factory lined up for Newcastle’s Northumberland Street

Graham Soult June 18, 2010 Property, Specialist Retailers 7 Comments

Tags: Bank, Card Factory, Clinton Cards, Fenwick, Foot Locker, Hamleys, Newcastle, Next, Northumberland Street, Peacocks, Priceless Shoes, Republic, St Andrew's Way, Zara

Typical Card Factory fascia

Newcastle City Council has recently received a planning application for the “display of internally illuminated fascia sign and non illuminated projecting sign to front elevation” for 55-57 Northumberland Street. The applicant, I understand, is the rapidly expanding greetings card chain … Continue Reading

A Woolies twist to every story

Graham Soult February 14, 2010 Property, Retail History, Woolworths 10 Comments

Tags: Dunnes Stores, Fenwick, Haymarket (Sheffield), Leeds, Newcastle, Northumberland Street, Peacocks, Sheffield, The Moor, Virgin Megastore, Wilkinson, Woolworths, Zavvi

Former Zavvi, Newcastle (27 Sep 2009)

Well, that’s a surprise! I’ve only just discovered that I’ve been photographing and blogging about a former Woolworths store – here, and more recently here – without even realising it.

While I was vaguely aware that there had been a … Continue Reading

Retailers needs a web presence that informs and inspires

Graham Soult August 27, 2009 Department Stores, Online, Technology 4 Comments

Tags: Amazon.co.uk, Beales, Bentalls, Bracknell, Colchester, department store, ecommerce, Fenwick, Ikea, John Lewis, Kingston-upon-Thames, Lewis's, Liverpool, Morpeth, Newcastle, online marketing, Play.com, Rutherford & Co, web usability, Williams & Griffin

Image by Zoran

I was quite chuffed, this morning, to have a short article on web usability published in The Journal. Much of what I wrote is, or at least should be, common sense: essentially, the need to understand what information your customers are looking for, and to give it to them in a way that is clear and engaging. Though the examples I used in the article related to tourism websites, the same principles apply … Continue Reading

Not what I had in mind for the old Newcastle Zavvi store…

Graham Soult August 26, 2009 Property 4 Comments

Tags: Barclays Bank, BHS, Eldon Square, Fenwick, H&M, HSBC, M&S, Marks & Spencer, Monument Mall, Newcastle, Next, Northumberland Street, Primark, Zavvi

Newcastle's Zavvi store in happier times. Photograph by Mankind 2k

When I remarked a couple of weeks ago that Newcastle’s “Monument Mall would surely welcome the arrival of a strong anchor store” following the closure of Zavvi, a potential new branch of Barclays Bank was not exactly what I had envisaged.

Today’s Journal reports that “some … Continue Reading

John Lewis Bristol and the city’s changing retail landscape

Graham Soult July 24, 2009 Department Stores, Property, Retail History, Shopping Centres 3 Comments

Tags: Bentalls, Bristol, Broadmead, Cabot Circus, Cambridge, Cribbs Causeway, department store, Edinburgh, Fenwick, High Wycombe, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Lewis's, Primark

John Lewis Bristol. Photograph by Mattbuck4950

Perhaps it’s a reflection of my status as a retail nerd that one of the first things I usually do on Friday mornings is check out the John Lewis Partnership’s ‘Weekly Figures’.

These weekly stats are strangely compelling in that – probably uniquely for a major UK retailer – John Lewis publishes a store-by-store breakdown for its eponymous department store chain. Hence, … Continue Reading

Soult's Retail View

Victoria’s Secret heading to Newcastle’s Monument Mall – if Hammerson’s posters are to be believed

Cladding goes up on Newcastle’s Primark as new city centre developments take shape

Newcastle roundup: retail lettings remain active as Cath Kidston signs and Office expands

L’Occitane en Provence heads to Newcastle’s Eldon Square

Twenty-one North East stores close immediately as Game collapses

Celebrating Britain’s indie department stores: Atkinsons, Banburys and Barkers

Putting today’s John Lewis sales drop in perspective

Newcastle update: Wooly Minded and Card Factory open; Bank on the way

Newcastle’s Wooly Minded store opening – more details about “the knitter’s paradise”

Card Factory lined up for Newcastle’s Northumberland Street

A Woolies twist to every story

Retailers needs a web presence that informs and inspires

Not what I had in mind for the old Newcastle Zavvi store…

John Lewis Bristol and the city’s changing retail landscape

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