“I think we are looking at a continued period of uncertainty with some retailers doing well, others not and the same applying to shopping locations. The greater certainty of the new UK government may well be offset by the global uncertainty generated by the change in administration in the US meaning household budgets and discretional spend may continue to come under pressure.

Although there appears to be some greater interest from investors driven by perceived value i.e. values are low enough to get their attention however whether sellers and buyers aspirations will converge is yet to be seen. The ‘buy it cos it’s cheap’ mentality does not however address the long term issues.

Every location needs a clear long term strategy. This approach can be helped with owners such as Local Authorities willing to take a long term view however they often seem reluctant to spend what is needed to put a comprehensive strategy in place. Long term investors need to accept that in order to make their investment a success they need to understand the worth in the short term investment needed to have the right people to devise the strategy and accept there will be some short term pain.”

“In 2025 the ‘fall out’ from the Government’s first budget will be in full focus. On the Retailer front increased NI Costs/Minimum Wages Bills & reduction in Rates relief will all bring a focus on growing the top line and reducing costs to help the bottom line. The Rates reform piece should start to gather momentum following the budget allowing Revo to help influence.”

“I think we will see AI applications beyond IOT monitoring. Consumers will become much smarter about the value exchange of their details for a brand payback.”

“Consolidation of the prime shopping centres in the UK (in terms of performance) with asset management capability and strategy influencing the fate of the next tier of schemes.”

“The most successful centres will be focussed on the whole community, thinking about those who do not visit as well as those who do. Through continued investment and diversified leasing, these centres better reflect the neighbourhoods they are in and grow unique visitors, frequency and average spend per visit. Creating spaces people want to spend time in for a variety of reasons, and delivering rent growth for landlords.”

“1. Seamless Integration of Physical and Digital Experiences

‘Phygital’ retail experiences will continue to dominate as consumers expect more seamless transitions between online and in-person shopping. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will enhance destination marketing by allowing consumers to explore places virtually before visiting.

AI-driven personalisation will make retail and destination marketing hyper-targeted, offering unique experiences tailored to individual preferences.

2. Community-Centric Placemaking

Placemaking will prioritise community-building and authenticity, with a shift from generic commercial spaces to vibrant, culturally rich environments. Mixed-use developments will integrate retail, entertainment, workspaces, and green areas. Sustainability and social equity will be core. Places that engage communities with eco-conscious designs and inclusive practices will attract more visitors and long-term residents.

3. Sustainability as a Non-Negotiable

Consumers are demanding sustainable practices from businesses, influencing the design of retail spaces and marketing strategies. Green certifications and initiatives like carbon-neutral spaces will become standard in placemaking projects. Destination marketers will highlight sustainable travel options and eco-friendly tourism experiences to attract environmentally conscious travellers.

4. Experiential and Purpose-Driven Engagement

Experiences over products will define retail and destinations. Pop-ups, immersive art installations, and curated local events will draw visitors, creating memorable moments that connect emotionally with audiences.

Placemaking will focus on creating destinations where visitors and locals feel a sense of purpose and belonging. Storytelling about the history and culture of a place will be central to attracting visitors.

5. Technology as a Key Driver

The use of AI, IoT, and data analytics will revolutionise how retail and destinations operate. From smart wayfinding in cities to predictive analytics for retail trends, technology will enhance visitor experiences. Metaverse integration could emerge, where retail stores and destinations maintain digital twins for shopping, exploration, or promotional events.

6. Evolving Consumer Behaviours

Retailers and destination marketers will need to adapt to Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who value digital fluency, authenticity, and ethical practices.

Travellers in 2025 will seek micro-adventures and hyper-local experiences, driving demand for less crowded, off-the-beaten-path destinations.

7. Health, Wellness, and Safety Prioritised

Wellness tourism and health-conscious design in retail and placemaking will rise. Incorporating biophilic design, open-air markets, and wellness centres will create spaces that feel safe and restorative. Contactless technologies and health-focused initiatives, like improved ventilation and touch-free payment systems, will remain essential.

In summary, 2025 will be defined by innovation, sustainability, and personalisation. The retail and destination marketing industry, alongside placemaking, will thrive by prioritising community, culture, and technology-driven solutions to create engaging and future-proof spaces.”

“The 2024 Autumn budget has outlined a challenging landscape the retail sector as it heads into 2025. Retail leaders are facing key financial pressures, including increases in National Insurance contributions, the national living wage, and the packaging levy, are expected to cost the sector over £7 billion, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). These factors could lead to store closures, increased inflation, and significant job losses, adding further strain to an industry already under pressure.

With Easter falling in late April, early 2025 is likely to see a slow retail season as businesses and consumers, alike, reassess their budgets. However, there is potential for recovery later in the year, driven by events such as sports and music events. If the summer of 2024 is anything to go by, these cultural highlights are likely to boost footfall across key retail destinations, especially for hospitality and leisure establishments.

Despite the challenges, 2025 presents retail with some exciting opportunities, especially with the rise of mixed-use developments. These innovative spaces are set to redefine how people live, work, and play, providing a blend of retail, residential, and social elements. By catering to hybrid working lifestyles and evolving consumer needs, these developments could drive increased footfall and open new revenue streams for both tenants and owners.

The return to office which is set to become mandatory for many businesses – such as Asda, Amazon and Barclays – from the new year could also provide a positive boost to weekday footfall. Many centres are already beginning to pre-empt this, such as Merseyway Shopping Centre, where the newly created STOK-room areas will provide the centre with a modern, efficient office space to support changes in work arrangements.

The foundations for retail success next year will be dependent on a dual approach; government support will be critical in helping to alleviate some of the financial pressures and creating a more sustainable environment. Retail leaders also need to prioritise a data-driven strategic approach to navigate the challenging scenarios. By leveraging insights, retail stores and destinations can remain agile, forecast trends, and respond effectively to consumer demands.

With collaboration between the government and the retail sector, combined with bold, forward-thinking leadership, 2025 could still be a year of transformation and resilience.”

“Property has long lagged behind retail in our ability to understand the customer journey from end to end: knowing who our customers are, what messages they respond to, how effective a campaign has been and connecting marketing spend to transaction value. That changes in 2025, I think the focus will shift to owners of places prioritising ROI on marketing spend, optimising the experience messaging to target the most valuable customers and to measuring impact.

Alongside a more rigorous approach to marketing spend landlords will also start to own the customer more, building their own single customer views, bespoke segmentations and loyalty programs that all focus on customer retention and growing engagement.

2025 is the year of the marketeer!”

“More investment and spending of capital (subject to the absence of adverse global macro-economic events). More retrofitting and repurposing to promote net-zero.”

“We are seeing continued evolution of our town and city centres. The Government agenda is very focused on housing to which those centres will be active contributors – either directly through land – or as place enablers helping to make locations attractive and offer the range of services required.”

“An increasing number of opportunities for repurposing, either incremental or including some redevelopment. The delivery of new homes is front and centre of the Government’s policy agenda and that will feature more prominently in town centre schemes. The confirmation of £1 billion of Government funding for Levelling Up Fund projects in the Autumn statement is good news as much of that will be directed at high streets and town centres. The general economic climate remains quite flat but investment markets are sprinibng back to life and there are a greater number of enquiries around reawakening stalled projects and starting new ones.”

“Continued challenges around viability for town centre regeneration. Need for clarity about government financial support to help bridge viability gap and support local authorities in delivering regeneration. Need to ensure town centres are not forgotten on the government agenda, with focus on housing building often geared towards new settlements / greenfield. Starting to see delivery on the post Covid early town centre regeneration schemes – opportunities to learn lessons and see regeneration and repurposing in action.”

“Revo, as the platform for interaction between retail occupiers, developers, asset managers and investors, enables holistic thinking to be developed to help generate value from retail locations.

The analysis of retail sales by Co-star over the last 5 years and the October 2024 ONS retail figures, indicate that post Covid-19 in store shopping is stabilising at around 75% of all sales. The retailers that are producing the strongest sales are those that respond quickly to demand, present a seamless omni channel offer of complementary in store and online ranges and which deliver purchase and return routes that support customer choice.

Revo has long understood that the success of retail is intrinsically linked to attracting footfall. While standalone retail locations concentrate on the retailer offer, access and location to attract footfall, retail in town centres operates in the context of other footfall drivers. Employment, heritage, leisure, education health and civic uses define why people want to visit or live in, town centres in addition to the retail offer.

How town centres align the range of uses, how people move between them and how they respond user trends, is the challenge for those involved in creating attractive locations. For town centres this has always been about repurposing existing buildings and regenerating places. The best town centres are holistically managed to create mutually beneficial outcomes for the range of uses that attract footfall that must include its retail offer.

The Government’s ambitious commitment to deploy £5 billion by 2026 to deliver housing, with a further commitment of £3.1 billion per annum and an additional £3 billion to support SMEs and the build to rent sector to deliver 1.5 million new homes, is not matched with an equally ambitious programme to revitalise town centres, to which only £1.0 billion is committed until 2026. Therefore, it will be down to those with skin in the game, especially owners or occupiers to make the necessary changes with limited grant funding available.

The alignment of vendor and purchaser pricing of retail schemes, off occupier and rent stability, has been slowly unfurling private sector investment.

Through force of necessity, retail occupiers and retail property owners are having to become aligned to mitigate operational costs and meet the external threats to the high street. Sharing data more openly, to effectivity assess how stores and locations are performing, will help ensure the capital available for investment in retail, when deployed effectively alongside other investment in town centres, will ensure town centres survive and thrive for users, occupiers and asset owners.

Of concern for 2025 is the risk that any potential sector growth gets choked off by cost increases, whether the selected increased employer and other mandated environmental costs or inflationary driven by global events. Whether these side impacts can be alleviated by reform process reform or compounded by slow or no reform to the existing process, that block or delay investment remains to be seen. Such reforms create an environment that stimulates demand and attracts investment.

If opportunity led commercial investment decisions can be matched with pragmatic local authority structures and time conscious decision taking, benefits can be delivered at lower risk and cost. The challenge will be whether the political will, skills and capability are there to match the opportunities through effective decision taking.”

“More collaboration and communication between landlord and tenant as we await the new version of the RICS Professional Standard for service charges in commercial property, as well as landlord and tenant working together for data capture on utilities, and environmental data.”

“The industry will continue to undergo transformation as we turn the calendar into 2025.

These in my view will be driven by advancements in technology, the ever changing consumer behavior and a continuing and increasing focus on sustainability.

The advancement we are all experiencing in AI and this aligned to data analytics we will need to keep pace with the development our retail brands will be delivering in predicating customer needs, possibly even before the consumer realises it! This will further a very personalised shopping experience and our industry will need to embrace this change too.

We are beginning to see in Pop Up’s the resale market. There will be more growth and a physical presence of brands such as Vinted, Depop and eBay all of who are maturing in this market.

Of course there will be no let up in a need to keep pace with the Sustainability agenda and ESG will continued to be so important in 2025. The very discerning customer will make their decision on destinations to visit based upon the ethical ethos of shopping environments. the circular economy will be ignored at the peril of landlords.

On the back of the earlier mentioned AI advancement we will continue to experience the growth in automation and this flow through in workforce management innovations where will see Ai tools optimising workforce management to improve efficiency and satisfaction.

The continuing rationalisation to brands exposure will see the High Street continue to attempt to meet the challenges of exposure. More independent brands will need to emerge as the retailers of the future attempt to make their mark. This will all see a strengthen of prime retail space in shopping centres with the smart owners investing in lifestyle environments with co-working, residential and further experiential brands emerging to drive footfall and rental growth which we all hope will stabilise and grow after a significant period of decline.”

1. Greater focus on sustainability and diversity.
2. Estates continuing to incorporate mixed uses to accommodate communities.
3. Immersive experiences and technology continuing to lead innovation.

• Data Centers are on the rise with the increasing support required for the growth of digitiation, AI and remote working.
• Virtual Reality Applications for buyers, renters, sellers and more… revolutionizing the ability to interact with properties.
• Online Listings Marketplaces for buyers and sellers to easily connect.
• Many organisations are working on clean energy procurement through nuclear, solar, wind and hydro. Property owners can also monetize their properties and produce clean energy by leasing their land, rooftops, and parking lots for renewable energy production, a trend that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, especially due to new incentives for clean energy development.

• In-store technology – more and more places invest in in-store tech to make the customer experience as smooth as possible including self check out, virtual try ons and AI-driven assistance with shopping.
• Augmented and Virtual Reality to enhance customer experience
• Sustainability remains of great importance to consumers who are increasingly demanding transparency in sourcing and sustainability. retailers will be aiming to adopt eco friendly practices such as recyclable packaging.
• In ’25 the retailers will be aiming to make shopping more convenient, engaging, and aligned with consumers’ values.

• Impact of fire regulations (Building Safety Act, BS991 etc) on the industry.
• AI and the Impact it is having on our industry.
• Impact of Labour on the property industry.

“Data-driven requirements for experiential retail and leisure. Sustainable and innovative new ideas that focus on data and technological enhancements for customer satisfaction.”

“More online brands experimenting with physical retail through pop-ups and some exciting new flagship stores across London!”

“Retail bouncing back in a sustainable way, with assets repurposed with diverse uses that have a community agenda. More democratic open green space for connection with each other and nature. Women and men working together to shape truly inclusive and gender-sensitive places for everyone.”

“The sustained period of reducing demand for retail space over the last decade or so has been painful but it has led to positive moves to rebalance urban centres by (re)introducing other uses. The introduction of homes, hospitality, cinemas, workplace, etc continues to create greater resilience, extended periods of activity and safety in our centres; this, in turn, reinforces and supports retail. We are seeing the positive effects of this healthy mix on the retail industry and this has, in some part, helped stimulate a retail ‘bounce back’ in some locations (mainly large city centres). There is a danger of thinking ‘it’s all sorted’ and back to ‘business as usual’ and there seems a greater level of short term thinking and quick financial returns approach in the industry. It will be important to keep our ‘eyes on the prize’ and keep striving to develop layered, rich and poly cultural urban centres rather than accidentally slip back into total retail dominance. Otherwise we will have failed to grasp the opportunity to create town and city centres that truly meet the needs of their communities.”

“Vast swathes of high street and shopping centre space have been, or are in the process of being, redeveloped for other uses. A property may have been developed for a particular use, but that can and, arguably should, evolve over time as society’s needs and priorities change. For example, plans are underway to more than double the number of people living in Glasgow city centre to 40,000 by 2035, which will inevitably require a lot of the city’s current retail and office buildings to be repurposed.

The chronic lack of housing in Scotland is well known, to the point where the government declared a ‘housing emergency’ earlier this year. With net zero targets in mind, repurposing existing building stock as much as feasibly possible is one of the best ways we can meet that need – reusing a building’s foundations and structure can reduce the emissions of a project by up to 50%.

Many people will be sad to see their favourite shops go, but the sheer amount of retail space we have in city centres is going to be a thing of the past, one way or another. It is a tough, but natural, evolution of how the needs of communities have changed – and reusing what we already have is, in many cases, the best way of using property to fulfil them. Its all about repurposing retail!”

“The welcoming of Martyn’s Law which will deliver, for the first time globally, a mandatory security standard. Shopping centres and public event spaces will be safer for this but it will mean that people skills, operational processes and technology will need to be reviewed and made fit for purpose.”

“One of the most significant things that should be on every security professionals mind for 2025 is the ‘Terrorism – Protection of Premises’ Bill otherwise known as Martyns Law or Protect Duty.”