Manchester City Centre:
Weekly Retail Sales Trends

The Mystery Shopping Awards are an annual initiative run by the City Centre Business Improvement District (BID) to celebrate and benchmark customer service excellence across the city centre.

Each year, winners across multiple categories are announced at an Awards Breakfast.

2026 Mystery Shopping Awards

The exercise was conducted by ProInsight Mystery Shopping in May and June, covering hundreds of city centre businesses across categories including Health and Beauty, Technology, Food and Drink, and Fashion.

Winners were celebrated at a ceremony on Wednesday 15th July at The Stoller Hall.

The programme saw Outstanding! results:

• 248 businesses scored above 89%
• 100% service excellence by 70 BID businesses

With huge congratulations to all.

Best of the Best 2026

1. Fashion: Large Stores: Boss
2. Fashion: Foot Asylum
3. Boutique: Sunglasses Hut
4. Food & General Retail: Spar
5. Footwear: Barker by Brogue Trader, Clarks, Dune, Kurt Geiger
6. Health & Beauty: Jo Malone, L’Occitane, Molton Brown
7. Home & Lifestyle: Build-A-Bear, Clarendon Fine Art, Ecig, Merkur Casino, Whittard
8. Stationery & Books: Ryman
9. Wellbeing: Pure Gym, Seen, XF Gym
10. Bank & Building Society: Metro Bank, Natwest, Halifax, HSBC, Virgin Money
11. Advised Customer Service: Vispring
12. Technology: Apple
13. Jeweller: AP House, David M Robinson, Boodles, Ramsden, Tudor
14. Hospitality – Quick Service: Subway
15. Hospitality – Restaurant: Lucky Cat
16. Hospitality – Coffee/Takeaway: Gail’s Bakery
17. Hospitality – Casual Dining: Flight Club.

Best of the Best 2025

1. Advised Customer Service: Emma – The Sleep Company
   Bank & Building Society: NatWest
2. Boutique: Yours Fashion
3. Large Stores: Frasers Group
4. Fashion: Mint Velvet
5. Footwear: Russell & Bromley
6. Home & Lifestyle: Warhammer
7. Coffee Shop/Takeaway: Krispy Kreme
8. Quick Service: McDonald’s (Manchester Arndale)
9. Casual Dining: Kingpins
10. Restaurant: Grand Pacific
11. Health & Beauty: LUSH (Manchester Arndale)
12. Technology: Sky
13. Jeweller: Boodles
14. Food & General Retail: Marks and Spencer
15. Wellbeing: King Street Gym
16. Stationery & Books: Waterstones (Manchester Arndale).

This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone contributing to the success of Manchester’s retail, leisure and office sectors.

See the 2026 Photos (PC: Social Allies)

See the 2025 photos (PC: Fiona Finchett)

More about Manchester City Centre BID

CityCo, The City Centre Management Company, is the membership organisation representing businesses in Manchester city centre. Through our diverse networks, we bring together over 1,500 companies.  Part of our work includes managing the City Centre BID (Retail/ Leisure/ Office Business Improvement District).

More Information

Email: info@manchesterbid.com

Follow the work of the BID, services and events on LinkedIn here