Early Returns From Westfield’s Bespoke Are Promising

An additional 100,000 customers have visited the iconic shopping mall directly because of Westfield Bespoke.

For something that was initially an experiment from shopping mall giant Westfield. The company’s Bespoke at the San Francisco Centre has certainly grown from a mere curiosity. In fact, it’s become a major traffic driver. According to Forbes, an additional 100,000 customers have visited the iconic shopping mall directly because of Westfield Bespoke. 

Bespoke was started with the intention of providing insight into how technological advances will continue to influence the world of retail as a whole in the future. It’s located on the fourth floor of the massive shopping center, and it includes both co-working space and demo space, which is used by tech start-ups and for the testing of new retail formats.



While Westfield Corporation is more well-known as a landlord, the company has evolved to become sort of a retail partner, and it’s helping to shape the future of retail though it’s Westfield Labs arm, of which Bespoke is a part of. Lindsey Thomas, VP of marketing and communications at Westfield Labs, recently sat down with Forbes to discuss Bespoke. 

“But Bespoke has driven traffic in its own right too [those 100,000 additional consumers]. It’s been home to more than 75 retail tech startups and brands (who are shoppers as well), it’s hosted 50+ international retailers for innovation tours and demos, and 100+ events from the likes of Polyvore, Salesforce, Oracle and Facebook,” she says. 

She touched on numerous details of the past year with Bespoke, including the uniqueness that the co-working and demo space bring to the table.

“Where [the demos] take place is in a common area, but the co-working space also has conference rooms that focus out to mall – we left the doors on so in a matter of minutes they can transform into a full pop-up shop for usability testing or trialing a product, even if for just a weekend,” Thomas said. 

While the past year has been enlightening for Bespoke and Westfield Labs as a whole, Thomas points to a bright future ahead as well. 

“The exciting thing is we’re continuing to evolve and iterate and we’re not afraid to listen to the community and make new decisions based on what their needs are. We’re not afraid to pivot and change as a company at large and we’re bringing that to Bespoke as well. It’s been a very successful first year, but now it’s about how do we continue to build on that success,” she said. 

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Westfield San Francisco Centre

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