Shoppers can now benefit from fresh, fast and free WiFi at both Gloucester Quays in Gloucester and Lowry Outlet at Salford Quays, UK.

December marks the start of a brand new high-performance WiFi system for two of Peel Groups shopping centres in the UK. WiFi SPARK has upgraded, improved and extended the existing network by deploying the SPARK® Platform over the two centres, greatly improving connectivity and coverage.

Genna Lenden, Group Digital Marketing Manager says: “WiFi is an upward trend and The Peel Group aim to harness this to broaden their digital marketing strategy.

The WiFi solution which has been implemented by WiFi SPARK can be used to enhance the in-centre experience for our consumers, as well as providing Peel marketers with some precision tools to target the mobile customer.

“Offering free WiFi to our Outlet shoppers will increase visitor dwell time with the mind-set that shoppers will stay a little longer and visit more often.”

The network comprises of leased line connectivity, 28 high performance smart WiFi Access points, 10 of which are outdoor and 18 are indoor, and the SPARK® Platform delivering the managed service wrapper and providing all design features and ROI opportunities.

Taking advantage of the analytics platform as part of the managed WiFi service has shown that in the first 2 weeks since go-live at Gloucester Quays, the WiFi has seen around 2,000 login sessions. This is almost 5 times the amount of sessions from an entire year with the previous solution.

If estimations are correct, the system will report a 99% increase in connections over a year period with the SPARK® Platform.

Works are continuing to develop new market features, such as scheduling different User Experience Portal pages to display automatically, at different times of the day and on special events.

Genna continues: “By understanding our customers better we can improve customer loyalty and satisfaction by enhancing their shopping experience with targeted offers and incentives. Our aim is to exceed our shopper’s outlet experience and we can achieve this with the WiFi SPARK solution.”

About The Peel Group

The Peel Group is a private real estate, media, transport and infrastructure investment company in the United Kingdom. Peel's extensive real estate assets consists of 850,000 square metres of investment property and over 13,000 hectares of land. Peel is one of the largest property investment companies in the United Kingdom and has its head office at the Trafford Centre, in Greater Manchester.

About WiFi SPARK

WiFi SPARK is a specialist wireless network solutions provider with a broad variety of active locations across the UK, including the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, the National Portrait Gallery, Intu Shopping Centres and an expanding NHS portfolio that includes hundreds of NHS locations nationwide.