Price comparison retailing is being launched by Land Securities, the UK’s leading owners of shopping centres. The developer is adding Google Product search to the websites of its malls, following a successful trial at its White Rose centre in Leeds.

With the centre hosting a Fashion Week over Easter, I searched for ‘chinos’. The search returned 1581 items, with the first 1-20 results showing a variety of pastel and sand-coloured chinos for men and women available from stores at White Rose. A click on a £35 pair from Duffer of St George took me to the Debenhams page, providing opening hours and store location in the mall.

Shopping centre owners have resisted this type of ease and convenience shopping for years, as though paralysed by internet shopping. It has taken the tough economic conditions that have made shoppers more choosy, more demanding and canny to serve up a wake-up call. That Land Securities has accepted that it’s better to embrace the technologies that are already in the hands of shoppers is significant. As the landlord owning large fashion-led schemes in the capital, England, Wales and Scotland, it has deep relationships with Britain’s leading retailers. Sir Stuart Rose is a non-executive Director. Land Securities’ retail clients will have no doubt urged it to extend the Leeds trial across the portfolio if it proved a hit. Read more >>