Something I have been meaning to mention for a while is the various tools that most bloggers use to keep some of handle, on how effective or popular their site is or not as the case may be.
For me the sitemeter tracking software/facility is the one I prefer, this gives information such as the location of a visitor, what website they came from, and if they used a search engine the key words used in their search.
As far as I can tell this does not, identify individuals, although some companies, do have their own domain name, which can identify an organisation or establishment. generally media companies and large corporations are an identifiable as are the occasional smaller firms that have their own domain name (including a local law firm that checked out my Aitken rant of yesterday DAMN! (I don't think I went to far?)).
I merely mention this as a reminder to any user of the Internet, that trawling through the web leaves a trail.
Getting back to Westwood Cross, something like ninety per cent of the web searches arriving on my site have been inquiries about Westwood Cross and few of these are local coming from places as varied as Worcester, Sheffield, High Wycombe, City of London, Chelmsford, Bedford, Europe etc. Now I know that the new cinema will be opening there this weekend, but surely that wouldn't generate that much interest.
So if you know of anything occurring at Westwood do let us know.
For information about the new cinema at Westwood click here
For details of what information is revealed by sitemeter click here.
For what I've written on Westwood in the past click here
Tony a couple of observations about Westwood Cross that may interest you, first being a professional one that occurs when massive competition comes along, running the bookshop in Ramsgate I rather expected the huge W H Smith and Waterstones to make a difference to my business. I am totally mystified that it hasn’t and am even more mystified as to where their business is supposed to come from. I assume having approximated the value of both their stocks that they are expecting to sell several million pounds a year worth of books, but to whom, these new sales where do they come from?
ReplyDeleteMy point being here how many of the businesses at Westwood Cross are actually viable, obviously I only understand the book retailing aspect but looking at it professionally it looks and has always looked impossible.
The other point which occurs to me from general experience in retail, is that when all the car parks are full and the road system is gridlocked the shops don’t seem to me to that busy and still more and more shops and leisure opening there.
I wonder how many other business people around the country have looked at it and drawn similar conclusions and are interested in what will happen there.
A friend said to me last week, why didn't the council build a nice park instead of Westwood X. Right, like either you continue to live in apathetic poverty as per the last 30 years with no investment and have a nice park, or you invite investment in with a shopping mall and stuff. Investors want returns. I think my friend wants to live in a cave and make nails, jeeeez.
ReplyDeleteCareful, you could start a fascinating discussion on retail theory - 'luxury' purchases vs. essentials, multiples vs individual outlets. Many of the shops at Westwood Cross sell non-essentials (although Tesco and Sainbury might well be regarded as being at WX for this discussion), so it's still possible to shop there AND in a nearby town. And much of that sort of shopping involves a LOT of browsing, comparisons and ambling about without necessarily buying on a particular visit. WH Smith there apparently had the country's biggest sale of Harry Potters in the WH Smith chain for example.
ReplyDeleteMobile phone, sports and jewelry shops seem to be able to survive in a much wider range of sizes and locations, whereas there's clearly only room for one Marks and Spencer on the Isle.
And books are an oddity - after all, WH Smith and Waterstones don't really sell your segment of books - secondhand, some rare, many local (although they do a few local ones). And I'm guessing you don't aim to compete on the current release big sellers. So book buyers can easily use both types of shop to meet their needs.
But it would be interesting to see the planning figures - the combined target turnover of Westwood Cross stores predicted when the site was being sold to tenants, compared to the size of the local retail economy (then and now). I bet the numbers don't add up, as you suspect. The wierd world of retail accounting. Presumably the same discussion happens when Wickes, B&Q and Homebase all set up within half a mile of each other. Maybe their profit margins are so huge that us poor mugs can keep them all going!
Any retail economics researchers out there?
When I saw the title "New interest in Westwood Cross" I thought yoyu werre redering to the rumoured sale of the housing development for £80M, without a turf being turned.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting what search words people have used to find you.
ReplyDeleteI have searched for things at westwood - and found that there are other westwoods in the country - that may be why people far and wide have found your blog, ie because they mistook it for something local to them.
The words that have generated the most hits to my site are: scootch (Eurovision song contest); Karen Taylor (commediene BBC3); and similar things related to modern popular culture - such as the TV programme Chaos at the Chateaux. Yet this isn't the sort of stuff I'd usually write about.
I think this must reflect the interests of many who brouse blogs on the web - ie. Much younger than you and I, Tony!
I am about to write a blog on Westwood, soon - especially after being at that Thanet Under Threat meeting - but now you will think its just because I read your blog and am seeking attention!
Regards.
Zumi I see what you are saying however the total amount that people in an area have to spend on books has to be finite, by this I mean if you are say a typical non fiction customer with a dedicated interest you are not going to go from spending £200 a year on books to £1,000 a year on books just because the value of book stock on shop shelves in the area goes from £1,000,000 to £5,000,000.
ReplyDeleteSo either the people buying books at Westwood Cross are Thanet residents who had been buying them outside of Thanet or they are people coming from outside Thanet to buy them, or there are just not enough books being sold at Westwood Cross.
What worries me here is the affect that WC (unfortunate) is having on the town centers especially Margate, obviously if the problems of shops closed in the town centers is going to be solved properly we need to know about the viability of WC and how it relates to the town centers.
What is happening at the moment is that a lot of buildings rated as retail in our town centers are becoming either residential, bar restaurant or office, while landlords know that they can obtain planning permission for these other uses the shop rents reflect this rather than what a shop can actually make on the site.
Now if WC fails and the large retailers start to pull out and a large proportion of our town centre shops have gone we are in serious trouble, however is WC is succeeding we need to find a way of stopping our town centers from becoming housing estates with bars otherwise we are heading for serious social problems.
I don’t say I have the solution but it strikes me as peculiar that while millions of pounds are to be spent on the Turner Contemporary a book shop, butchers, fishmonger, music shop etc face the same expenses as a bar, takeaway, estate agent etc. perhaps it is time to review what is culturally and socially beneficial to a community.
I am interested in the points made by Michael.
ReplyDeleteI do not have hard evidence, only what I've over heard -
1. W.X. is attracting lots of people to shop form quite a lage distance from outside of the area. - Based on people I have spoken to. - People come here from places like Whitstable instead of going to Canterbury.
2. Many of the retail establishments have not reached their target turnover figures. Fortunately for the staff who work there, they do not actually own the company. As they are part of big chain stores they can probably carry these set backs for longer than small businesses.
3. I am pleased to see Thanet Business World have high profile premises now on the Margate Road. I don't like to think of a long established local business losing customers to a chain like Stapples.
4. Almost every shop (& the new gym) at W X has a coffee shop. Discuss!
Mrs T plumber I happen to be in the prime of life and probably happen to be the average internet user.
ReplyDeleteSurely no Blogger are attention seekers, what a suggestion.
Mrs t p I think I have worked out the coffee shop answer, it may be related to the cost of the ingredients of a cup of coffee relative to the amount they sell it for.
ReplyDeleteWC, apparently the rent for a small unit is 220k pa. As a trader in margate, business has suffered badly due to WC, and if your bookshop was in Margate High St it would be fighting for survival! The Council etc lack any commercial sense, the current revival plan is a weekly market selling the same goods as the remaining shops,putting even more prssure on existing traders, Broadstairs is also suffering badly and this is reflected in the high number of businesses that have been for sale, closed etc.The Government must be the only winner with a hugh increase in takings from business rates from WC. This has come at hugh cost to local town centres, local small businesses are declining rapidly and nobody at TDC etc seems to have noticed, even if it is on their doorstep....Somebody needs to come with imaginative plans ie free parking in the town centre car parks, asking traders how to increase business in the town. It could also reduce crime to business premises, our business is under constant threat of being broken into.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous couldn’t agree more, the two inexpensive things government could do for us is put back all the parking spaces they have taken away, starting with the over 100 on the seafront, and stop giving planning permission to turn retail to other uses. We have just lost our indoor market, another bar and while the landlords of the shops on the edge of the town centre know they can get permission to convert to residential the town centre keeps shrinking.
ReplyDeleteMost of all though we want our leisure facilities back, our new swimming pool, already funded on the seafront where it do the most good, and an end to the years of dereliction to our main seafront site while everyone argues about plans for a development that neither fits in the space available or abides by the laws of nature.
I drove back from Deal the other day and when re-entering the Isle there seems to be an abundance of new bright yellow official traffic signs constantly directing drivers towards
ReplyDelete" WESTWOOD CROSS - SHOPPING AND LEISURE".
What about some signs directing people to Ramsgate Town Centre shopping at the Lord of the Manor roundabouts then?
What happened to all the TDC promises of assistance for our dieing town centre shops?
This is directly leading potential new business away from the towns, and done deliberately by TDC, signs paid for by residents and existing retailers Council Tax, unless Westwood X are paying for the signs, in which case don't they need some sort of planning permission for each sign as they'd be classed as advertising?
Tony, don't worry about the "local law firm". It's probably just me (my day job, when I don't have my councillor's hat on). Begins with "B"
ReplyDeleteRegards
Ewen Cameron
PHEW! that's a relief
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this discussion as started by Michael and Zumi. The issue is that Michael says that book buying power is finite. This is true - it is also stable (constant) what is unchangingly inconsistent is that books are also sold as luxury and impulse goods and this does not come from your regular book buyer. Effectively there are two distinct and non overlapping markets that both happen to contain books as a basic product.
ReplyDeleteThe hurt being put on the town centres is not that the constants have been changed (which is why Michael's Bookshop feels no change) but that the impulse and "pin money" has moved away. Michael has demonstrated from his not so good for impulse traffic location that his business is viable independently of the quality of the location but that most other businesses relied on the "passing trade" which has moved to pass buy at the "cooler" locations.
The fact of the mater is that the cafe socioty (later called the jet set) have gone to hang out with the other fine young things over in fine-young-things-ville. Create something "cooler" in you neck of the woods and they will flock to you. The principles are very much the same as the fasion industry but a heck of a lot slower to change.
That's the business theory anyway. I hope it was not too uninteresting.