Town is one of the top places to shop in UK (From Ludlow Advertiser)

Town is one of the top places to shop in UK

RETAILERS in Droitwich have reason to celebrate after the town ranked 15th in the UK in a mystery shopping exercise designed to test it’s overall shopping experience.

Throughout September, independent shops in Droitwich were secretly assessed by trained market research professionals as part of a location model project, designed by Skillsmart Retail, the Sector Skills Council for Retail on behalf of Advantage West Midlands.

After two visits to each of 30 shops, the town’s overall score was rated at 83.7%, higher than 50 other towns in the UK which have taken part in the project, including Gloucester and Cheltenham.

Individual shops performed very well, with 21 of the 30 shops scoring above the benchmark of 80%. Top of the shops was The Belt and Bag which scored 96.3%, closely followed by Blunts Shoes (94.6%) and Gift Box (94.1%).

Janet Yates, Droitwich Spa Area Partnership Manager, said: “These results are absolutely fantastic – it just goes to show what great local shops we have and to beat some major towns is a real achievement.”

As well as the mystery shopping, a street survey was conducted in which more than 100 shoppers were asked to answer a number of questions about their experiences.

They expressed views on a range of topics including parking, cleanliness and feeling safe and the variety of national retailers and independent stores in the town.

The town was also visited by an independent assessor who looked at all aspects of the town centre from parking provision to how easy it is to find amenities such as the Post Office.

Droitwich fared well in this test and impressed the assessor, who had never visited the town previously. He found that car parking was easy to find, the town was free from graffiti and litter and there had been obvious signs of improvements made to the town centre.

Janet Yates added: “These surveys have given some very useful feedback highlighting both what is good about the town and areas for improvement. We will be studying the results and using these to plan the way forward.”