Built with

Combining function with style at Lakeside Shopping Centre

Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex forms one of the largest shopping areas in a single location within Europe

The Problem

Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex forms one of the largest shopping areas in a single location within Europe and is home to over 300 shops, restaurants and leisure attractions, including brands like Apple, Zara, MAC, Puttshack & Hollywood Bowl. There is a true blend of retail, leisure and food and drink.

The previous website was predominantly used for accessing ‘functional’ information by visitors (top pages included opening times, store directory and vacancies) so key consideration was needed as to how this could seamlessly integrate with a more visually appealing design.

Its main rival is the Bluewater Shopping Centre in Greenhithe, Kent, just across the River Thames and we wanted to ensure that Lakeside’s new site would elevate the centre’s positioning.

As part of the brief, the client tasked us to create a website that would:

+ Increase email subscribers

+ Increase dwell time in centre

+ Improve visibility of services that the centre offers

+ Make it easier for users to find what they are looking for.

The Solution

A streamlined, efficient and engaging site was created using our DC Pro platform. This was the ideal platform to use because the client wanted to bring to life the unique brand personality of the destination but still required industry specific functionality such as the brand carousel and business directory.

It was imperative to not lose sight of Lakeside’s current user experience – visitors have always wanted functional information elements at their fingertips so surface service information for the user (opening times and key centre information) is front and centre on the home page. However, we also knew that bringing events to the fore would lead to longer time on site and therefore translate to longer dwell time at the centre. Our homepage design achieved a perfect balance.

The new site has a mobile-first approach so that the users on the go can access retailer information easily and have advanced filter options. This was achieved by a re-ordering of the hierarchy of information when it goes to mobile.

Lakeside has such a broad range of brands and activities, the visitor is spoilt for choice – to make for easy searching, a personalisation filter based on the user’s intention (entertainment, day out, quick shop, bite to eat, etc.) has been utilised across the site.

Visit Website

Modules installed include

DC Notification Banners
DC Cookie Consent Management
DC Global Categories Module

The Results

Over 45% of users visit a business listing, well above the industry average of 35%

Users visit 3.5+ pages on average, that’s 1.2 pages more than the industry average

Engagement on Facebook is particularly high, well above the industry average, with Facebook referrals accounting for around 5% of website traffic

"We are really happy with our new website and how DestinationCore have helped continually improve and evolve it over the time we’ve been working with them. I use DestinationCore Insights for all my reporting. It’s an invaluable tool for us and I couldn’t do my job without it."

Tayla Hawkes, Digital Marketing Manager