Yate Shopping Centre in South Gloucestershire has been given a fresh new look thanks to an innovative website from Interdirect, helping to position the centre as the leading retail destination in the South West.

The new website provides a range of intuitive design functions to improve user navigation and an updated content management system (CMS) to give internal system administrators complete control over the website’s content.

Built using Interdirect’s bespoke CMS, SiteMachine, Yate now has the ability to manage its own image libraries, update event information regularly, and bring the latest store offers and promotions direct to shoppers. The website also features an interactive wayfinding system, a fully integrated centre map and allows users to see what’s happening in and around Yate in the ‘Things to Do’ section.

Andrew Lowrey, Centre Manager at Yate Says: “We are really pleased with the new design of the website, and it is a fantastic milestone in the centre’s revamp. Interdirect has been instrumental in driving the website’s intuitive functionality, which has significantly improved the user experience.”

The website is just one of the highlights of the centre’s revamp to promote the destination and offer a unique retail experience – visit www.yateshoppingcentre.co.uk for more information.

This month Interdirect went live with the website and touch screen re-skin for top regional shopping centre, thecentre:mk, bringing its digital assets in line with the centre’s new creative campaign – ‘Where shopping is bliss’.

The new campaign draws on the joy of shopping and puts the centre’s shopper reward programme, Bliss - a system also developed by Interdirect – at the heart of its creative strategy. The new campaign also helps to create a dialogue with customers, by inviting them to feedback about what bliss means to them, and ensuring that shopper loyalty underpins all of thecentre:mk’s activities.

www.thecentremk.com

Interdirect is pleased to announce the launch of a new website for The Potteries shopping centre in Stoke-on-Trent.

The Potteries wanted a website which showcased the personality of the centre, with its community and family appeal, as well as communicating a shopping centre with style and a good variety of brands. Consequently The Potteries website has a clear striking design and easy-to-use navigation.

www.potteries-shopping-centre.co.uk

With the growth of online shopping at its fastest for three years, should shopping centres be feeling cautious about the future?

With the growth of online shopping at its fastest for three years, and the latest figures from IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) revealing that shoppers spent a whopping £5.1billion online during March 2011, should shopping centres be feeling cautious about the future?

Interdirect says that with good PR, including positive media relations, working with local partners, promoting events, and developing internal communication, and an interactive and innovative online presence, shopping centres have little to worry about.

Whilst it is convenient to shop online, there is no beating the ‘retail therapy’ and social interaction aspect of visiting a shopping centre, where you can spend the day with friends or family trying before you buy and taking the time to enjoy  hundreds of shops under one roof.

Working alongside online retail, shopping centres can offer a ‘real life’ experience that is what ‘a night out with friends’ is to ‘a night on facebook’ - it doesn’t compare!  And if shoppers feel the need to stay digitally connected when in the ‘real world’, now they can, with many shopping centres providing touch screen technology to communicate more effectively with customers, offering interactive services, such as way-finding. 

By driving publicity in both traditional and online media, shopping centres can increase footfall and get more people shopping in store.

Interdirect is thrilled to welcome new recruit, Anne Compton, to the company’s growing PR division.

Anne joins Interdirect from Sports Leader UK where she worked as a PR Officer writing and sub-editing marketing material, releases and copy for an array of external publications. Her talents also ran to managing content on the intranet and website and managing social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook.

Anne’s previous experience included time as the Communications and Marketing Assistant at Surrey Heath Borough Council and Communications Officer at NHS South East Coast Strategic Health Authority. Anne’s experience at these and other Councils and the many different projects that they entail, have provided her with a sound understanding of the nature of agency PR. 

As an additional Account Manager, Anne will be helping to support PR Director Debbie Lamb on Interdirect’s various PR Accounts as well as strengthening the company’s Retail PR portfolio.

Interdirect is delighted to announce the launch of a new website for top shopping centre, The Chimes in Uxbridge, North West London. The Chimes is a vibrant and thriving shopping centre located in the heart of historic Uxbridge, with many of the UK’s biggest brands which attract a vast array of shoppers from the local area and beyond.

With its high-end retailers and top brands, The Chimes needed to ensure the design and feel of the website was stylish and contemporary whilst also being easy-to-use. The website needed to present all the shopping centre has to offer, including in the Piazza, High Street, the Centre and the cinema, through clear navigation.

www.thechimes.uk.com