Retail parks have been shaping the image of suburban shopping landscapes for years - as central points of contact for large-scale retailers, from DIY and electrical stores to furniture stores and discount grocery stores.
Around 4,500 areas are characterized as retail parks in the Nexiga database, making them an important part of the German retail landscape. In combination with socio-demographic data, this provides a valuable basis for well-founded location decisions.
Their continued success is based on the growing price and discount awareness of consumers as well as the lower land costs and simpler construction methods at the edges of the stores. Retail parks offer space for large-scale stores with standardized, low-priced product ranges that often cannot be accommodated in city center locations - and thus ensure local supply close to home and within easy reach.
Typical sectors and their representatives are:
- Food: Supermarkets (Edeka, Rewe) and discount stores (Aldi, Lidl, Netto)
- Drugstores: dm, Rossmann, Müller
- Textiles & shoes: KiK, Takko, Ernsting's family, Deichmann
- Electronics & household goods: MediaMarkt, Saturn, Roller, Poco
- DIY stores & garden centers: Obi, Bauhaus, toom, Hornbach
- Non-food discounters: Action, Tedi, Woolworth
In addition, there are smaller specialist stores (e.g. baker, butcher), restaurants (snack bar, bakery-café) and service providers (hairdresser, dry cleaner, post office).
Retail parks are predominantly located on the outskirts of cities or in convenient locations, often on arterial roads. They usually consist of one to two-storey, functionally designed buildings without any special architecture. They are characterized by large, free parking spaces directly in front of the stores. This means that they are primarily aimed at car customers; local public transport connections play a subordinate role.
More about retail parks
From retail park to retail park
Retail parks bundle several large-scale specialist stores on one site and differ from traditional shopping centers in their functional, everyday-oriented character. They offer easily accessible locations for price-conscious shopping for everyday needs. They originated in the 1950s and 1960s in the USA with the so-called retail parks - large, conveniently located shopping areas for the "one-stop store" outside city centers. Suburbanization and growing car ownership encouraged this development.
From the 1960s/1970s, the concept spread to Western Europe, including France and the UK. In Germany, specialist stores such as Obi and Praktiker established themselves from the 1970s onwards; from the 1980s onwards, targeted bundled centers emerged. After reunification, the shopping center boom experienced a strong upswing in the 1990s, particularly in East Germany.
Our map (PDF) shows retail parks of different sizes with their typical branch mix as well as shopping centers, shopping malls and smaller business clusters with usually only three stores - shown here using the example of the city centers of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen.
Key questions for site selection
Retail parks appeal to a consumer-oriented target group that values convenience and low prices. Knowledge of customer preferences is therefore key to targeted product range and offer planning.
Spatial knowledge about the location and surroundings of shopping centers is also crucial for business, urban planning and retail . They offer high visitor numbers, good accessibility and sufficient parking spaces - key factors when choosing a location for new businesses.
" More about location planning
Companies and investors check whether their concept fits the structure of a retail park, which target groups and competitors can be expected on site and what the rents, ancillary costs and sales potential are like. Other important success factors are synergies with anchor tenants such as DIY or electrical stores, which further increase the attractiveness of the location.
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Nexiga Topshops: With Nexiga Topshops and a comprehensive database on large-scale parking lots, Nexiga offers precise identification of retail parks - the ideal basis for well-founded location analyses in a wide range of sectors.
