Retail Report: Marks & Spencer, Penneys, Brown Thomas, Dunnes and Boots are the most popular shops in Dublin city centre, attracting at least 20 per cent of city centre shoppers on a Saturday, according to a report from Retail Research, a new retail consultancy set up by Dr Tony Parker, formerly of UCD.
The report found that Arnotts, A Wear, Roches, Easons and River Island made up the rest of the city centre's top 10 retailers. Significantly, at a time when there is considerable concern about the international retail invasion, three of the top five retailers are Irish and seven of the top 10 are Irish companies.
The report reveals interesting patterns of shop-to-shop linkages with, for example, the Marks & Spencer Grafton Street shopper not only patronising Brown Thomas but also Dunnes Stores outlets. However, Brown Thomas and Dunnes Stores do not show a significant consumer shop-to-shop linkage between them.
Based on a statistically controlled sample of 2,000 interviews, the report estimates that some 150,000 pedestrians pass through Grafton Street on a Saturday. The numbers on Grafton Street are almost 9 per cent more than on Henry Street. However, the difference in average expenditure is little more than €1 between the shoppers on the two streets.
Dr Parker, who founded the Centre for Retail Studies at UCD almost 20 years ago, is now to run Retail Research, specialising in retailing and, in particular, the locational, planning and consumer behaviour aspects of the retail system. He will be available as an independent, expert research adviser to developers, planners, retailers and other organisations.
