Brand villages: in Miramas, McArthurGlen benefits from a catchment area of ​​4.2 million inhabitants

The sales period accounts for 10% of the center's annual turnover. Who suffered the full brunt of the road blockages. Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON

The center, open since spring 2017 between Arles, Aix-en-Provence, Avignon and Marseille, welcomed three million visitors in 2023. Many of them from Hérault and Gard, two of its targets.

"It's the closest", Sarah smiled. "The setting is pretty, slips Valérie. I like the concept and the brands offered.& quot; Besides, the card will "heat up, laughs Zorah. Sometimes 300€, sometimes 700€, but I also dress and shoe my grandchildren."A girl, her mother and her friend, three Héraultaises from Fabrègues, are having a shopping day in Miramas. 1 hour 15 minutes' drive, normally, but the agricultural blockades, which have just obliterated 20% of McArthurGlen Provence's turnover, over the past two weeks, have forced it to take longer. nbsp;a little sunny detour through the Camargue, this Friday.

190 shops in circulation

In the parking lot, their car is not the only one in the neighboring departments of Bouches-du-Rhône. Var, Vaucluse, Gard, Alpes-Maritimes, 04, 07, 34, 69. "The Rhône is in the top 10 of the departments of' origin of our customers", observes Michela Frattini, the director of the village opened in April 2017, which can count on 4.2 million consumers within 1 hour 30 minutes of its parking lot, 2.7 million less than an hour away. They make up a third of the clientele of the Provencal outlet, people who stroll, bags in hand, in the circulade lined with houses with wooden shutters and tile roofs, whose floors hide the spaces storage and brand offices.

Michela Frattini opened it. Saw the growth, "regular", of its attendance, up to three  million visitors in 2023. "A brand center is considered to reach maturity at ten years. We have seven, there is still potential", says this Italian from Lake Maggiore, enthusiastic and smiling, just naturalized French, about this catchment area "of 90 minutes" which is the center of his attention. "We need to attract from afar because it's a volume business. Prices are low, and so are margins; you have to sell a lot for it to be profitable."

Less 30% all year round

The promise is "less 30% all year round on the previous season's collections"< /em>, says Armelle Desbois, the marketing director. But "40, 50, even 70% extra during sales, which represent 10% of our annual turnover. What we have just lost, we will have to make up for and innovate to achieve it", continues Michela Frattini. Bring back loyal customers more frequently than the 3.5 times per year, on average, convince new ones, seduce passing customers and for this, nothing, no detail, is delivered at random.< /p>