RETAIL MARKET:A study of the retail market on the island of Ireland shows that the consumer spend in Dublin city is more than twice that of its nearest rival, writes Jack Fagan.

DUNDRUM TOWN Centre has emerged in a major study as the top shopping centre on the island of Ireland with a retail spend well ahead of many cities and towns across the country.

Shoppers spent an estimated €696 million at Dundrum in 2008, according to the first Irish Retail Centre Rankings by Experian, the global provider of retail property information on high streets and shopping centres.

Not surprisingly, Dublin city was confirmed as the number one location for retail spending with a total figure of around €2.4 billion, well ahead of Belfast city with €1.1 billion and Cork city with an estimated €756 million.

Dundrum was ranked fourth, putting it ahead of not only all other major shopping centres but of Limerick city (€607 million) and Galway (€474 million).

Liffey Valley shopping centre came fifth in the Republic with a spend of €554 million followed by the Galway region with €474 million, Blanchardstown Town Centre (€383 million), Waterford region (€357 million), Swords region (€320 million); Tralee region (€318 million); The Square in Tallaght (€304 million); Castlebar region (€286 million), Sligo region (€266 million); Ennis region (€255 million); Athlone region (€242 million) and Drogheda region (€229 million). Incidentally, Stillorgan shopping centre is in a disappointing 67th place with a spend of €124 million.

Six venues in the North figure in the top 15 retail locations: Lisburn with a spend of €512 million; Derry (€501 million); Abbey Centre in Newtownabbey (€457 million); Ballymena (€374 million); Ards Shopping Centre in Newtownards (€371 million); and Rushmere Shopping Centre in Craigavon (€336 million).

The Experian study examines all the major retail centres in Ireland, assessing them on a number of key performance indicators such as the size of the centre by floor space, the number of major multiples, comparison stores and quality independent retailers.

Owners of the various shopping centres will be even more interested in Experian's forecast on the changes in turnover likely to be experienced over the next decade. Looking to 2018, Dublin city is expected to continue to be the leading retail location in Ireland with the spend due to increase by 14 per cent to €2.7 billion as a result of new retail developments and extensions to existing schemes. On the downside, several smaller centres and retail parks surrounding Dublin will be affected by the improving retail offer within Dublin city centre and improvements to the larger malls in the Dublin area.

Belfast is also forecast to strengthen its appeal with a predicted growth of 25 per cent over the decade because of the opening of the Victoria Square and Royal Exchange shopping centres. Dundrum Town Centre is forecast to hold its overall ranking of fourth place in 2018. However, the study suggests that despite the completion of the second phase of Dundrum Town Centre, consumer spending will drop by 4 per cent because of improvements in Dublin and Bray.

The prediction is even more disappointing for Liffey Valley which is expected to see consumer spending down by 19 per cent, far ahead of the 12 per cent decline forecast for Blanchardstown Town Centre. A spokesman for Green Property, owner of Blanchardstown Town Centre, said: "We question the methodology used in the research as we believe it contains some glaring inaccuracies in relation to current retail spend. The research states that the current retail spend at Blanchardstown Town Centre is €383 million as opposed to the actual 2007 spend of €735 million."

Several smaller towns are set to benefit from the Government's decentralisation plans, notes the report. Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, with limited retail facilities, will see a significant growth in retail spend due to the development of a new shopping centre. Gorey is also expected to experience considerable improvement in the next decade. Bray will also be a beneficiary with the planned opening of the Florentine Centre and the Pizzaro scheme. As well as Dublin, major centres like Belfast, Galway, Limerick and Cork would also experience retail growth in the next decade, notes the report.

On the downside, Experian forecast that several retail locations will suffer because of new developments and new extensions going on around them. The Co Wicklow town of Arklow, where the new Bridgewater shopping centre opened last autumn, looks like being the biggest loser with the study forecasting that the retail spend will drop 50 per cent - from €135 million in 2008 to €80 million in 2018. Arklow is also set to be hit by the closure of the Allergan plant but, according to the report, the slippage in spending will mainly be affected by the opening of new shopping centres in Bray.

The report also says that Wicklow town is likely to suffer a 35 per cent decline in consumer spending with other losers in the Republic to include Leopardstown Retail Park (down 29 per cent); Clondalkin (down 24 per cent); Stillorgan Shopping Centre and Blackrock (each down 23 per cent); Castleblaney and Dún Laoghaire (both down 22 per cent); Nutgrove Shopping Centre, Malahide Road Retail Park and Airside Retail Park in Swords (all expected to be down by 21 per cent).

Experian's forecasts are based on what it calls a "gravity" model which calculates the amount of comparison goods expenditure a centre is likely to attract given the strength of its retail offering and the levels of competition around it. Experian says that the gravity model draws on its "unrivalled" position as one of the UK and Ireland's leading providers of retail data, analysis, forecasting and consultancy, and is built "using proprietary information from a number of Experian products".

The gravity model utilises Experian FootFall which examines pedestrian footflow data in all major retail locations; Goad which provides floor space data plans for over 900,000 retail locations in Ireland and the UK; Mosaic Ireland described as "a leading consumer classification product which uses over 400 data variables to understand the unique socio-demographic composition of a retail catchment area".