The star above Liverpool One continues to shine brightly. Secure as one of the UK’s leading shopping destinations, the city centre retail/leisure attraction has reported its “most successful festive shopping season since 2019, once again bucking national retail trends”.

The now-Landsec-owned destination’s run of seasonal success began with Black Friday week, with Liverpool One experiencing 14% growth in footfall and a 28% increase in sales during the period, “reflecting the trend of consumers buying in-store and doing so early to kickstart Christmas”, it noted.

This positive performance was sustained throughout December, with footfall up 10% (compared to a 2.2% decline for the UK, according to data from the British Retail Consortium, it pointed out), and a strong uplift of 7% in overall sales.

Additionally, during the period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, it reported a 26% year-on-year increase in footfall “as significant volumes of consumers continued to visit the destination”.

Rob Deacon, Asset Management director at Liverpool One, said: “Achieving our best Christmas in six years is a fantastic end to another successful year. Driving our outperformance has been our commitment to providing best-in-class brands and experiences for our visitors, and that will continue in 2025 as we prepare to launch more new stores than at any point since [we] opened in 2008.”

Liverpool One said it welcomed 22 brands totaling 200,000 sq ft in 2024, including Zara’s new, larger, regional flagship and sportswear brand Montirex’s first bricks and mortar store.  In addition, fashion group TFG London, beauty giant Sephora and Japan’s Uniqlo have signed store agreements and will open in 2025.