It may be approaching its 20th birthday, but Essex’s Lakeside remains a key retail destination. John Ryan visits to see how its retailers are coping in a fiercely competitive environment

Estuarial Essex comes in for a lot of stick from people who don’t live in the county, but while some of the criticisms may be fair, the Lakeside shopping centre does much to redress the balance. The mall, houses more than 1.3 million sq ft (120,770 sq m) of retail space, is only a couple of years short of its 20th birthday and yet, walking around it, the centre is not showing its age.

Indeed, many of the shops that have space there are either recent arrivals or have undergone an extensive revamp over the past two years. The mall itself has also had a facelift and now represents serious competition for Bluewater in Kent, less than 10 minutes by car across the QE2 bridge.

Walking round the mall last week, it was interesting to observe the diversity of fascias and interiors and to note some of the shortcomings, as well as the positives on display from the many retailers that occupy the space.

French Connection

The minimalist, hi-tech white box that has been a mainstay of French Connection’s stores seemingly for ever has been abandoned at Lakeside in favour of a fascia that looks like a cross between a branch of Timberland and one of the edgier surfwear shops.

The window surrounds have been formed from raw-looking wood veneer, creating a semi-log cabin effect – a theme that is carried into the store, where more spotlights and lower ambient light than usual are apparent. Despite this rough and ready treatment, the two windows were used to highlight the kind of summer fashions that certainly wouldn’t be worn by backwoodsmen (or women).

The store provides a refreshing contrast to the blandly slick shopfronts of some of its neighbours.

Woolworths

Woolworths has a frontage where the “Wool” in the logo has been replaced with a full-size sign saying: “WiiFit now at WiiWorths”. At first sight this looks like an adept bit of marketing by Woolworths and one that is likely to attract shoppers.

However, a quick glance to the right of the entrance reveals a snag: plastered over a green silhouette of a figure indulging in a little WiiFit Pilates – or something like it – is a printed sign bearing the legend: “Reserve your copy now” and then, in a smaller font: “WiiFit out of stock”. This looks like the cardinal sin: a strong marketing message is holed below the waterline by an inability to support the promotion.

Stocking a hot-seller is always the right thing to do. But telling shoppers, via the store’s logo, that is it in-store and then producing an apologetic-looking notice informing them that it isn’t actually there has to be a mistake.

In fairness, Woolworths Lakeside has undergone an internal rearrangement, meaning it is now much more straightforward to navigate and to find what you might want in the key music and sweets departments. On the day of visit, there was also a strong promotion for the latest edition of video game franchise Grand Theft Auto directly inside the entrance. Providing Woolworths in Lakeside hasn’t done a WiiFit with this as well, it looks like a case of right product, right place, right time.

Sports World

The Sports World store at Lakeside is something of an anomaly. Much of it sits on the site of the former Next shop, which relocated within the centre last year. This gives it an extremely long frontage and, while Sports World has opted to put its usual frontage on roughly half the store, the remainder has been given a one-off treatment.

One part of this is a black entrance with white font over the door that announces: “Ladies Dept at Sports World”, while the other is an entrance to the “Junior Dept at Sports World”. Neither of these are a huge improvement on the normal fascia and internally, principally because of an incorporated mezzanine, the layout was confusing.

In the women’s department there was a wall filled with pastel-coloured crop t-shirts and vests surmounted by a silver Lillywhite-esque sign stating “Lifestyle”. Judging by the more upmarket style of the majority of shoppers passing through the mall on a Monday afternoon, this probably wasn’t the sort of lifestyle being sought.

The mid-floor equipment was no different from any other Sports World and the tendency to overfill the rails was as strong as ever, with everything full to bursting – although housekeeping standards were relatively high.

Hotel Chocolat

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most effective. Think Hotel Chocolat and the image that comes to mind is of a sophisticated product offering in a store environment where high-end design values are to the fore. The window of the Lakeside store both confirms and debunks this image.

Using a vintage gilded picture frame to showcase a message about a product offering is a well thought through device and one that fits in with the brand’s urbane character. On the other hand, rather than melt-in-the-mouth truffles or exotic high percentage cocoa chocolate, what sits inside the frame is an advert for “Vintage Buttons”. The unexpected contrast between the lavish stage set of the window and the simplicity of the product was an attention grabber.

In-store and more than a year after it opened, this is still one of the most impressive pieces of retail design at Lakeside and a distinctly aspirational element of the retail mix.

Bhs

Lakeside’s two-level Bhs is one of the shining stars of the mall. It is one of the latest stores to receive a makeover and the simple white-box format with large coloured walls provides a relatively efficient way of refreshing a store interior without huge amounts of capital expenditure, according to owner Sir Philip Green.

Green said that the Lakeside store represents Bhs, along with others in the sector, “putting its best foot forward”. And it was certainly attracting more than its fair share of shoppers, drawn by a wall of lights at the entrance to the store on the upper level and the red walls of the “Riviera” holiday shop at the downstairs entrance.

Homewares, which has had a strong showing in the standalone British Home Stores, is featured on the first floor of the store, with simple high-gloss white cubes on wheels being used to present the stock.

Unlike many shops at Lakeside, Bhs does not have windows, opting instead to use the store interior as a display vehicle. As in other branches, the in-store café provided a welcome respite from the pushchairs and long-suffering mothers that seemed to have filled the centre’s walkways.

Ben Sherman

The Ben Sherman store at Lakeside makes no bones about its metropolitan origins. The two windows feature a collage of images taken from the capital with a striped version of Big Ben, a paste-up reminder of the song London Calling by The Clash and landmarks such as he London Eye and part of St Paul’s Cathedral.

What’s clever about this shop is that despite the displays, the stock in the windows is not overwhelmed by its surroundings. In-store, the sober dark-wood goalposts that are used as open-fronted wardrobes are set off against a black and white mod-style herringbone pattern. The rear of the shop has library-patterned wallpaper.

All of this would have been very engaging were it not for the fact that the two perimeter panels on the right-hand side of the shop just inside the entrance were conspicuously empty and little was being done to fill them. There is a time and place for remerchandising and the middle of the day is not it.