Scentre Group has unveiled new Westfield ANZ websites with digital technology to complement and enhance its physical offering.

The new Westfield.com.au and Westfield.co.nz, the first phase of Scentre’s ongoing program of innovation that went live on Thursday, will see the initial release of 40 new websites across the Scentre Group portfolio.

Phil McAveety, director – Customer Experience at Scentre, said with their customers’ habits changing, fueled by digital technology, they saw the need to also enhance their digital offering.

“We recognise the opportunity for digital technology to further enhance the customer experience in-centre, starting with our core digital offering,” McAveety said.

McAveety said this new digital platform will be brought to life through data driven content, personalisation and open dialogue with reviews and social feeds.

Scentre’s new technological offering will also provide new digital shopfronts to Westfield retailers, allowing them to bring their own personality, products and bespoke offering onto the site, complementing the physical in-centre experience.

“From the smallest coffee shop to the biggest department store, the new digital shopfronts allow retail partners to ‘self-publish’ content, giving them more control in how they present their brand, their products, offers, services and staff,” Scentre stated.

Renee Smith, head of Marketing at Cotton On, said they have been working closely with Scentre Group on the development of the new digital shopfront because, she said, for them, it’s another channel with which they can engage directly with their customers.

“The new site allows us to curate content that is relevant to each of our 50 in Westfield centres all over Australia and what’s exciting is we have the flexibility to make it our own, hero-ing the products and services such as personalisation that we know is important to our customer,” Smith said.

According to Scentre, in addition to the new website the new Westfield visual identity will launch across the Westfield SmartScreen network, EDMs, the Westfield app and digital directories, before rolling out to non-digital touchpoints.

Following on from the phase one launch, the company added, the site will continue to evolve to incorporate dynamically updated, contextualised information, from up-to-the-minute movie times, car parking capacity or rainy-day inspiration.

“Content will be based on customer insights, served according to the time of day they’re are viewing it, where they are viewing it, in-centre or out of centre – giving customers the right information, at the right time,” Scentre said.

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