GAME to open second out of town store

Leading UK videogame retailer GAME is set to open its second out of town store in the UK at the start of September, as part of a trial of a variety of new store formats aimed at continuing the expansion of the chain.

The new store will open in the Gallions Reach shopping park in Beckton, East London, on September 2nd, and will occupy 1,500 square feet of space on the retail park. It follows the opening of the store's first retail park outlet in Cheshire Oaks in 2000.

The company is now searching for other suitable out of town sites - and is also trialling a number of other new ideas for stores, including "Outlet" stores - the first of which opened in Castleford in early July - and "Neighbourhood" stores, the first of which opened in Putney in May, with four more planned in Fulham, Chiswick and Wandsworth.

"Out of town is a relatively new opportunity for GAME," commented Lisa Morgan, deputy chief executive designate at GAME Group, "and one we believe will draw many new customers to us, particularly with the industry becoming more mass market. Our new stores in Beckton and Cheshire Oaks will be the only out of town shopfronts in the UK that are totally dedicated to games."

GAME now operates over 340 outlets in the UK and Ireland, along with a large number of stores in Sweden, Spain (under the CentroMAIL name) and France (under the ScoreGames name). Some estimates place the company's market share of UK games retail at over 50 per cent.