Fashion in the BIG little City Results now In

The results are in for the recent Fashion in the BIG little City event, run by Heart of the City to encourage retail spending in central Auckland.

The one-day event included value-add offers from over 100 participating retailers, two great fashion competitions and 7 fashion shows in public spaces. Fashion in the BIG little City was held as part of the week-long New Zealand Fashion Festival, held in various central city venues and sponsored by HOTcity.

As part of our event post-analysis, we commissioned Marketview Limited, who measure spend via BNZ credit cards, to analyse how consumer spending was impacted by the event. The results were positive.

On Saturday 3 March, when Fashion in the BIG little City was held, spend with the participating retailers was up 19.6% compared to an average Saturday spend across the last 12 months.

The spend on apparel (clothing, footwear and jewellery) in the central city as a whole over the course of the week of the festival was up 36.2% compared to an average week’s spend, while non-CBD shopping areas were down -13% in this category. Apparel spend with Fashion in the BIG little City-participating retailers during the week was up by a very respectable 52.9%.

The event also achieved some good Web/social media/database results. This is all good news as it gives us stronger channels for our on-going BIG little City marketing messages and campaigns.

A survey with HOTCity retailers who participated in the Fashion in the BIG little City event, with a 25% response rate, also returned positive results. 60% of respondents noted an increase in customer numbers, and 53% noted an increase in sales. 66% would participate in the event again, and the greater portion of these people would support extending it across a whole weekend.

We will be reviewing the success of this year’s event to determine how we may do it again next year.