The pandemic's fatal blow to many retailers was the call to change industry wide. The demand for easier and safer shopping experiences beaconed retailers to move with the winds of change. Some retailers found themselves better prepared than others. In the year 2020, there was one retailer who stood out as exceptional: granting them the title of “2020 Retailer of the Year''.  

Looking like an unlikely or unexpected retailer, Best Buy sells mostly electronics, most of which can be bought at other stores or online. So how exactly did Best Buy seize the retail winds of change and redirect their trajectory into retail success? 

Best Buy’s response to the chaotic beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic

As a retailer that has seen struggle the last few years, the pandemic could have decimated the remainder of Best Buy’s hope. However, Best Buy took the new challenges in swing, adapted, and is came out better than before, even reimagining and recreating the physical retail concept.

Similar to other retailers, Best Buy was not considered “essential” at the onset of the pandemic. As a mandatory measure, all Best Buy stores shut down in March, except for curbside pickup. This was done as a necessity, although Best Buy used the closure as an experiment to collect data on several factors, including consumers preference and behaviors towards e-commerce and curbside pickup and to see if their physical stores could operate with the stripped down purpose of filling online orders. 

Despite restrictions and due to successful e-commerce and curbside pickup, Best Buy continued to report increased sales, citing as high as a 174% year over year growth for online sales.  Demand for electronics was also accelerated by masses of the workforce working remotely as well as a large span of the population bored in quarantine. 

In May, Best Buy announced it would open but only for one-on-one in person shopping experiences with a Best Buy expert. Two months into the pandemic, customers making the trip into the store either couldn’t find what they needed online, or were just ready for the in person shopping experience. This new one-on-one experience was another experiment to see the true demand for in-person shopping. Return to stores without an appointment took place in June. 

Best Buy, as a result of these real time experiments, began taking steps towards the new trend in physical retail by minimizing the sales floor to make room for back room storage space. Physical stores will be more or less like mini fulfillment centers, focused more on filling and shipping out online orders. These new stores formats will be at four locations in Minneapolis. The plan, laid out by CEO Corie Barry, described a sales floor displaying a limited stock of the most popular items, clearing half of the physical selling space to make room for pick up and ship from store. 

Combining the retail test experiments, improving in their e-commerce platform, streamlining curbside pickup, and move toward the mini-warehouse store model, Best Buy earned the title of 2020 Retailer of the Year for embracing the opportunities that a worldwide pandemic offered, proving the retail experience will become better than ever. 

Honorable Mention: Lululemon

Before 2020, much of the general public may never have heard of Lululemon. Thanks to the fashion moving closer to comfort (and also comfy clothes being the everyday wear during an outbreak of a deadly contagion), Lululemon might grant part of its success to increased demand in athleisure wear. Yet, one might ask why Lululemon? For a pair of yoga pants at Lululemon, a customer will easily spend almost $100 (easily 3 times the cost of most yoga pants). 

The reason for success is a mix. Lululemon offers quality products and community. Pre-pandemic era, one may have visited the store for a yoga class. Now, fitness videos are available on their website. Or, as a result of Lululemon’s strategic acquisition of MIRROR, use their home gym to connect with trainers or complete workouts remotely. Further focus on IDEA, Lululemon’s initiative concentrating on inclusion, diversity, equity, and action hopes to yield a positive impact on employees, customers, and communities. As a result, Lululemon built brand loyalty. 

Success may also be granted to Lululemon’s investment in their e-commerce platform, readying themselves for the surge of online sales that skyrocketed last year, resulting in 93% revenue increase from online and direct-to-consumer sales. 

Continuing to expand locations, Lululemon certainly has established a name for itself as the household brand for athleisure and retail success. 

Not every retailer was able to adapt, innovate, and move forward as successfully as others, resulting in thousands of retail store vacancies. Determining and securing the right tenant to occupy an empty space might be a very difficult challenge to tackle on your own. Retailsphere constantly collects data and conducts research on every retailer in the nation, forming an up-to-date database perfect for quickly finding the perfect tenant. Set up a virtual meeting with a  Retailsphere professional for a personalized demo to start filling your vacancies immediately.  

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After filing for bankruptcy and closing all 50 stores in February, the health food store Earth Fare is planning a comeback.In early February, the specialty organic grocery store Earth Fare filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Within two months, the chain closed all 50 branches, laid off 3,000 staff members, sold 10 locations to larger supermarket chains, and negotiated lease agreements for nine more. The funds accumulated from the sales and closures were substantial enough that newly-appointed CEO Bethany Turon announced plans to reopen seven or eight of their most profitable stores by summertime. The company has already purchased leases and equipment in four states and is finalizing the details for stores in two others.

Earth Fare cited competition rather than over expansion as the sole cause of their financial troubles and subsequent closure. Founder Roger Derrough, who sold the chain back when the company was a 13-store operation, said he was shocked by the news and wondered if better decisions could've been made. He has teamed up with investor Dennis Hulsing and Green Sages cafe founder Randy Talley to restart the company. The group is fully committed to the company's mission to supply communities with organic food that meets high standards for how it is produced and what goes into it.  "We don't want people drawn to this purely for the money,‚Äù Turon told Citizen-Times. ‚ÄúThey also need to be philosophically aligned with the original intentions of Earth Fare."

While almost every other industry is suffering, groceries are big business right now. In March, grocery stores saw a 29.3 percent increase in sales in comparison to where they were the year prior. The largest increases in sales were in household goods, meats, and frozen food. Produce and seafood are also more profitable than normal, but not nearly on the same scale as the aforementioned categories. That said, it is expensive to operate under the current circumstances ‚Äî personal protective equipment must be acquired for staff and employees are pushing against regular pay structures ‚Äî and the long term impact of the crisis on grocery stores is unforeseeable. 

Did you have an Earth Fare in your shopping center? Do you need help filling a large vacant space? Schedule a no-obligation demo today, and let Retailsphere show you how easy finding new tenants can be,

The post Earth Fare Prepping to Reopen at Least 7 Stores by Summer appeared first on Retailsphere.

Lollie & Co.

Erie, PA’s hometown boutique, Lollie & Co, is the perfect stop for comfortable, affordable, and on-trend clothing as well as home decor and accessories. Shoppers can expect curated items, with taste and customer service forefront. 

The shop, founded by a former teacher, opened its second location despite the pandemic. The brand also provides a monthly subscription box service for those looking to treat themselves or give a great gift. 

“I knew this had to be the time. Ideally, I would not have opened during a pandemic, but I guess dreams and plans wait for no one or a perfect time. So here we are!”

Sara Kim, owner of Lollie & Co. 

Greek From Greece

Greek From Greece boasts authentic Greek coffee and flakey pastries—with all products straight from the islands themselves. Guests can grab a strong cup of coffee or a buttery crusted pie from the shop, founded and proven in NYC. 

The bakery is expanding throughout the Northeast, through partnership with Fransmart. New locations will be found in Pennsylvania as well as new drive-thru retail stores in Long Island and Connecticut. 

“It’s the ideal franchise—high volume, low start-up, few moving parts, easy for a franchisee to operate multi-units, and easy for store-level employees to get it right every day. The food is crave-able, and you can only get it at GFG.” 

Dan Rowe, CEO, and founder of Fransmart

On

On, the Swedish designed shoe brand, has expanded into brick-and-mortar retail with a new flagship store in New York City. The brand is known for their sleek athletic shoes. 

On has created a tech-forward space that marries experience and shopping in an innovative way. Using their “magic wall” and running floor, customers can take a quick jog and have their gait and running shoe needs analyzed in seconds. 

“This year more than ever, people have found solace and joy in running. That’s why, in many ways, there has never been a better time for us to open our first global flagship store in a city that we’re confident will remain the shopping capital of the world.”

David Allemann, On cofounder 

WONDERSPACES

Immersive art experiences are both the most AND the least 2020 retail trend. Eager instagrammers have lined up over the past few years to snap selfies in unique spaces, but COVID restrictions placed a damper on things, to say the least. 

Wonderspaces is finding ways to connect artists and their audiences in a safe way, with a focus on enriching the community over creating social media buzz. They will soon open a 24,000 square foot new gallery space in Philadelphia, featuring 14 unique installations. 

“We’re trying to serve a role in people’s lives that is that place of social gathering. It’s not about taking pictures here. There are no hashtags on the walls. It’s the in-person shared experience, and that intention is different from other organizations.”

Jason Shin, co-founder of Wonderspaces

Ready to bring some innovative small business energy into your own retail spots? With a free demo from Retailsphere, you’ll see how our powerful database can help you fill any vacancy. Schedule a demo today.

Many retailer databases crowd the market but none provide data as complete and reliable as ours. Retailsphere works hard to offer the most complete retailer profiles designed with you in mind. Whether you're a shopping center owner, landlord, commercial real estate broker, developer, or something else entirely, we provide the data you need to fill your vacancies with the best retailers as quickly as possible. Sign up for a no obligation demo today.

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Luxury retail has been a haute ticket of late. In fact, strong growth in the high-margin luxury segment has been sustenance for the industry during the so-called "retail apocalypse." In 2019, luxury rose above other non-commodity, non-discount retail, growing 4% year-over-year to about $309 billion, according to a Bain & Co. Luxury Study.

Luxury customers aren't bargain hunters and they typically shop for experiences and premium "white glove" customer service, plus seek highly-regarded, dependable brand names that they associate with exclusivity.

The world's top luxury retailers remain in an elevated class. With a profit margin of about 30 percent, Louis Vuitton is the globe's highest valued luxury brand, sporting high-end leather goods, handbags, jewelry, shoes, trunks, watches and accessories, most emblazoned with the famed LV monogram. Louis Vuitton, which has 460 stores, tops Forbes' 2020 "most valuable brands index," with an estimated value of nearly $40 billion.

With the addition of celebrity designer Virgil Abloh as menswear artistic director, and collaborations with cult street-wear brand Supreme and Master & Dynamic for wireless earbuds, Louis Vuitton continues to reach out to Millennial luxury shoppers as well as new audiences. The retailer's parent company, LVMH, also owns Christian Dior.

With total annual global revenue in excess of $90 billion dollars and 550 stores, Gucci remains a luxury juggernaut hot on the tail of LVMH. Gucci has had an exceptional run, enjoying a 9.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past 10 years. The Italian brand, famous for fashion and leather goods, is ever on luxury consumers' minds: the brand is discussed, on average, more than 11 million times monthly on social media, according to online data.

Gucci and Louis Vuitton aren't the only 2 luxury retailers to rank among the world's most valued brands for the past 20 years, according to consulting/marketing firm Interbrand. Another revered luxury retailer, French fashion house Chanel, boosted its estimated value by $1 billion to $9 Billion in 2019, despite a minimal e-commerce presence, said Luxe Digital. (Current estimates put luxury e-commerce sales at only 4 percent of luxury goods revenue, according to PYMNTS.com.)

The privately held Chanel, known for celebrity and narrative-led ad campaigns, is famous for its Chanel No. 5 perfume and the iconic Little Black Dress. Besides apparel and fragrances, Chanel sells watches, handbags and accessories. In late March 2020, shoppers formed a long queue outside a Chanel boutique in Shanghai, just as retail was re-opening in China, the New York Times reported.

No luxury brand list can be complete without Swiss luxury watch manufacture Rolex, which is as much a phenomenon as it is a retailer. The firm is celebrated as the world's most renowned and reputable manufacturer and seller of timepieces. Vintage and rare Rolex issues continue to spur fascination with the brand, which enjoys strong aftermarket interest and robust pricing.

In late 2019, a Rolex Daytona that was owned by actor/racer Paul Newman became the most expensive watch ever sold at auction, netting $15.5 million at auction in New York. Top sports celebrities, including Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn, promote the brand, which is the official timekeeper for the four tennis Grand Slam events as well as for golf's PGA and European tours.

Christian Dior, more commonly known today as Dior, remains steadfast among the world's top luxury retailers. Dior designs and sells leather goods, fragrance, makeup, skin-care products, fashion accessories, footwear, jewelry and watches. Its Christian Dior Couture division, where art meets fashion, continues to elevate the brand. The Dior label remains largely for women, the retailer is pushing more menswear and accessories into its 220-store chain, and online. Both profit and revenue for Dior rose a stout 15% in 2019.

While the COVID-19 crisis may shake out the some of the weaker luxury retailers, don't look for the above stalwarts to disappear soon. Luxury consumers tend to compare their shopping experience to the difference between watching a top-flight Broadway show and stating home watching television.

Following re-opening of stores in Asia, luxury sales, at least anecdotally, are starting to bump up again, retailers say. Globally, Chinese customers account for a little over a third of total luxury purchases. After the 2008-2009 recession, these consumers still spent big even as Western demand softened. Given travel restrictions, any such assumptions remain difficult to make in the near term, however.    

The fastest luxury growth categories in 2019 were jewelry and shoes (9%) and leather goods (7%). Looking forward, the Bain survey indicates that about 80% of luxury customers prefer socially responsible brands, particularly Millennials, another indication that authenticity and transparency will be critical to tomorrow's luxury retail consumers.

Is your shopping center or vacant retail space located in an area that could support a new luxury retail store? Will people be eager to line up outside of a new Chanel store, similar to those consumers in China? Let Retailsphere help you find the right luxury retailer for your space. Schedule a demo today and let our team show you how simple your retailer search can be.

The post Can luxury brands help save physical retail? appeared first on Retailsphere.

City Creek

Positioned in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, City Creek Center is the best performing and most unique shopping center in Utah. Built as an indoor/outdoor shopping center with a retractable roof for inclement weather proves to bridge the best of indoor and outdoor malls. True to the name,  a small creek runs through the indoor hallways of the mall. Expect to find the best of the luxury brands beside local, high-end boutiques.

Well-behaved pups and their human parents are also welcome to the center. A long list of retailers welcome pets into the store, some leaving water bowls outside the front of the shop for pets to replenish their thirst from a day full of shopping. Demand to become a tenant at City Creek Center is high, resulting in little to no vacancies. 

NorthPark Center

Combining shopping with modern art curated from internationally acclaimed artists, NorthPark Center in Dallas offers an artful, breathtaking retail experience. Modern art is displayed throughout the mall's common areas, inside and out. Take in the sight of  Mark di Suvero’s grand 48 feet tall Ad Astra, the largest indoor piece by the renowned artist. Visitors can follow the art tour mapped out to view all the pieces while simultaneously shopping. NorthPark  welcomes more visitors than most conventional art museums. Naturally, luxury retail brands fit in well to the artistic atmosphere. Louis Vuitton recently expanded its presence in NorthPark. The high end brands alongside modern pieces of art beckons back visitors searching for beauty to behold (and buy). 

Aventura Mall

Winter holidays in Florida may not promise the snow, but Aventura Mall can certainly promise the magic of the holidays. Nestled between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Aventura Mall is celebrating the holidays bigger than ever. The beloved Aventura Station is the largest model train in Florida, and lovingly built and installed over 5,000 hours. Aventura Mall welcomes Santa and the Grinch. Santa resides in Santa’s Workshop with larger than life 13 feet tall candy canes, 12 feet tall toy soldiers, and a 5 minute light show every hour.

Guests visiting the Grinch will find him in the recreated Grinch's cave called “The Grinch’s Grotto”. Bring a 39 ½ foot pool (or maybe just 6 feet) to maintain social distancing protocols. Also sprinkled throughout the mall are bushes playfully trimmed into reindeer waiting for a passerby to take a photo. Other Instagram worthy photo ops are next to the Santa’s sleigh or the 8 feet tall Menorah. Brimming with holiday festivities and events, Aventura continues to be a sought after shopping destination for locals and travelers alike. 

South Coast Plaza

The South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California must be one of Santa’s most magical spots, because Santa is in two places at once! Waving merrily from his sleigh behind protective glass and surrounded by decor reminiscent of “It’s a Small World”, Around the World with Santa will bring a little extra cheer to shoppers passing by. For a more personal meet and greet with Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, guests can visit him (weather permitting) in Santa’s Outdoor Wonderland. Near full capacity, the South Coast Plaza brims full with fine dining, the very best of the luxurious brands, and trendsetting local boutiques. 

Scottsdale Fashion Square

A leader in luxury, Scottsdale Fashion Square’s success and continued expansion has hardly been slowed down by the pandemic. New renovations, additions, and redevelopment advance as the shopping center flourishes with shoppers seeking the high end. New designer up-scale stores include Saint Laurent, Dior, and Golden Goose. Holiday hours extended, Fashion Square proves to be keeping busy during the holiday season. Near or far for the holidays? Scottsdale Fashion Square also has a downloadable Holiday Santa Kit for make-at-home crafts. 

Many retailer databases crowd the market but none provide data as complete and reliable as ours. Retailsphere works hard to offer the most complete retailer profiles designed with you in mind. Whether you're a shopping center owner, landlord, commercial real estate broker, developer, or something else entirely, we provide the data you need to fill your vacancies with the best retailers as quickly as possible.

Has the COVID storm wrecked your shopping center? Little ma and pop shops that couldn’t survive the mandatory closures and national brands fallen into bankruptcy may have caused considerable empty spaces in your portfolio. The good news is there are local shops and big name brands that are thriving amid the pandemic. Retailsphere can help you find the right tenant for your retail vacancies. Schedule a 20 minute virtual meeting to begin rebuilding your successful tenant mix. 

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The future of the retail industry revolves around technology, and that doesn’t just mean a shift to e-commerce. Proptech real estate companies are transforming the brick-and-mortar shopping experience and how landlords run their shopping centers. 

Investors are pouring funds into new retail formats, in-store technology, supply chain solutions, and much more. Combined, retail tech funding hit $109 billion globally in 2021, more than double 2020’s investment total, according to CB Insights. 

Read on to discover how proptech companies will impact the retail real estate industry in the year ahead. 

Identifying New Tenants with Sophisticated Data Services

A real estate investor has an abundance of data available today to help identify the right tenants for an investment property. After all, not all retailers are the right fit for a specific property. You want to bring in brands with strong growth prospects that complement other retailers in your shopping center.

That’s where data comes in. With a sophisticated data service, a property manager can see detailed information on prospective tenants such as:

• Site Selection Criteria: Understand what characteristics retailers seek in a space, such as demographics, traffic count, median income, or parking requirements.

• Mobility: View actual foot traffic to identify which retailers draw a crowd.

• Point of sale: Target popular brands by seeing how much retailers make at individual locations across the country.

• Social Media: Go deep into a retailer’s brand and customer base by reviewing how it interacts with customers in social media channels.

• Reviews: Understand how public sentiment toward the brand is trending.

Transforming the In-Store Experience with Tracking Technology

Data has many more uses than identifying prospective tenants. Just as workplace designers use utilization and occupancy data to determine the optimal office space design, you can use new layers of data to improve the shopping experience. 

Retailers and property owners are using smartphone and foot traffic data to inform marketing tactics and reimagine store design. Using data gleaned from smartphones, you can even make the physical space more interactive and deliver targeted offers and assistance directly to individual customers. 

In-store technology also delivers property management benefits. Property managers can determine the busiest shopping times with crowd-tracking cameras. Armed with that information, you can ensure proper staffing levels during peak hours — or brainstorm new ways to draw in customers during slow periods.

Data also has the power to integrate the online and in-person experience. Brands can use location data to identify which customers visited their stores and then target them with digital campaigns. 

Streamlining Retail Property Management with Automation

Proptech real estate tools are injecting new efficiency into the job of a property manager. With tools that automate lease administration, rent collection, contracts, and other daily tasks, you can improve productivity and better service your retail tenants.

The pandemic accelerated the digitization of the commercial real estate industry — retail included. With in-person interactions restricted, many real estate investors, brokers, and tenants became much more comfortable exchanging documents online, conducting virtual tours, and moving money electronically. 

Software companies responded to this trend with new solutions that are here to stay. For example, you can automate your marketing efforts with a customer relationship management (CRM) system. With the right CRM, you can send personalized texts, emails, and social media messages to prospective tenants—and track the responses.

By streamlining administrative tasks, you’ll free up time to focus on strategies that improve the profitability and attractiveness of your retail property.

Enhancing Building Sanitization with Modern Technology

COVID-19 brought a heightened emphasis on the cleanliness of public spaces. Consumers ranked frequent cleaning and sanitizing as the top measure that would make them more comfortable with visiting physical spaces, according to a survey conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers.

With the pandemic fresh on consumers’ minds, the focus on cleanliness is unlikely to abate soon. Modern cleaning technology solutions can play a key role in both improving the efficiency of cleaning processes and making consumers feel comfortable.

For example, touchless entry, elevators, and payments ease customer comfort and reduce the number of surfaces that require frequent sanitation. Cleaning robots can supplement your janitorial team by spotting and cleaning up spills.

Meanwhile, air quality sensors can detect viruses and pollutants in the air. This data gives property managers insight into areas that may need improved filtration or ventilation.

Boosting Sustainability with Smart Building Technology and IoT

In recent years, proptech companies have introduced many new technologies aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the built environment. 

These innovations will be increasingly critical for attracting retail tenants with ambitious sustainability goals. For retailers, the physical store is a powerful manifestation of its commitment to reducing its carbon footprint.

To attract sustainability-minded retailers, property managers must step up their efforts to make shopping centers more energy efficient. That’s why many retail property owners are now transitioning to smarter building management solutions enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT).

IoT-based smart building solutions typically enable energy efficiency improvements in power; lighting; and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Sensors and other monitoring technology provide granular, real-time data on building performance. 

Property managers can use this data to do more than improve efficiency at the building level. They can also benchmark properties within a portfolio and identify opportunities for improvement.

You can implement a smart building system as a stand-alone project or as part of a comprehensive sustainability plan. For example, many retail property owners are adding electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, exploring sustainable landscaping, and implementing green cleaning programs.

Start Your Journey with Retailsphere

Staying ahead of the latest technology trends will be critical for shopping center owners in the digital age. Are you considering new proptech real estate solutions in 2022? 

Schedule a demo to learn how Retailsphere can help you better leverage data and enhance deal management.

The post Proptech Trends for Retail Real Estate in 2023 appeared first on Retailsphere.

The Hometown Hero: Wicked Weed Brewing Co.

3+ locations, Asheville, NC

Set in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains, Wicked Weed’s quirk (they once brewed a donut-infused beer) is a perfect match for Asheville, NC. After founding their original brewpub, the brand also opened The Funkatorium, the south’s first taproom dedicated to sour beers, and they now have 3 locations total—plus a pop-up wine bar. 

Serving up classic pub grub with a southern twist, the brand recently partnered with an anonymous donor to provide $200,000 worth of meals for the hungry in Western North Carolina. Giving seems to be the company culture as many of their employees also donated Wicked Weed Thanksgiving turkeys to families in need this year.

With over 25 flavors, a full bottle shop, free brewery tours, and an ever-growing distribution, this brand is growing like a weed. 

The Green Grower: Terrapin Beer Co

2 locations, Athens, GA
This Athens based brand brews 18 varieties of award winning beer (over 50 titles and counting since the brewery's beginning), including their much lauded collection of Pale Ales. Beginning as a micro-brewery by two tried-and-true beer lovers, Terrapin has grown into a full fledged tribe. 

The brewery’s newest location—The Terrapin Taproom—at The Battery in Atlanta brings a BBQ brewpub and baseball into the mix. The brand’s pub calls both Terrapin’s  five-barrel brew house Brew Lab and the Atlanta Braves neighbors. 

And that’s not all Terrapin is building. Beginning with a wastewater pretreatment facility, the brand is out to prove that the signature terrapin isn’t the only thing green at Terrapin Beer Co. They also founded Terraprint, a sustainability campaign dedicated to clean brewing across a number of resources. 

The Local Watering Hole: Wicked Barley Brewing Co

1 location, Jacksonville, FL

Jacksonville is home to dozens of breweries, and Wicked Barley is a family-friendly local gem that proves you don’t need a beer empire to become a neighborhood staple.  

Serving certified independent craft beer from traditional to unconventional (Cinnamon Toast Crunch beer anyone?) Wicked Barley has won multiple awards across categories for Florida’s best beer. 

Nestled on the banks of Goodby’s Creek, the brand has both indoor seating and a large beer garden space where guests can enjoy the Florida sunshine. The brewery partners regularly with local vendors for holiday pop-up markets and kid-friendly events. Plus, the beer garden is dog friendly. Another stand out feature: guests can arrive by water, docking at the brewery’s 100 ft dock or kayak launch. 

Missing the cozy comfort of your own favorite brewpub this year? Or maybe seeing the possibilities for one in your neck of the woods? Retailsphere can help you find the brewpub of your dreams, and you can start right now with a virtual demo. 

The post 3 Southern Brewpubs Serving Up Suds and Community appeared first on Retailsphere.

Follow these 4 steps to take your retail real estate marketing to the next level.

1. Refine Your Tenant Prospect List 

When marketing your property, it can be tempting to cast a wide net, targeting as many retailers as possible. Yet this strategy often backfires, with the majority of prospects overlooking your communications. Worse, yet, you might be inadvertently marketing to tenants that you may be prohibited from leasing to – a terrible waste of time for both sides.  

Real estate brokers, owners, and developers tend to have more success when they start with a hyper-targeted contact list. By spending more time on research up front, you can trim your list to a handful of retailers whose requirements match the space you’re trying to lease. 

Narrowing your target list allows you to take a more tailored, personal approach. You can focus your time on educating prospects on how your space uniquely fills their needs. 

Where should you start with your research? You’ll need access to comprehensive retailer data, such as their average sales per square foot, as well as what they look for in a space. Their site selection criteria will include demographics, traffic count, square footage, minimum frontage, parking requirements, and much more. 

Additionally, you’ll need contact information for the site selectors at each retailer so you can reach the right decision-makers with your marketing efforts.

2. Create a Robust Digital Footprint for Your Retail Property 

The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital tools for commercial real estate. While in-person property tours have picked up again, tenants and brokers have become accustomed to vetting properties first with virtual walkthroughs and videos, and efficient and effective use of new technology. 

Providing a rich digital experience is the first step in capturing your prospects’ interest. Drone footage and virtual tours can help build out your property’s digital presence and powerfully showcase its strengths. 

Drones offer the ability to capture high-resolution aerial photos and videos of your retail real estate. The bird's-eye perspective of a drone shows a comprehensive picture of the entire property that cannot be achieved with traditional video. 

This gives prospective tenants visual information as to vehicular traffic at the entrance, parking lot usage, and many other visceral cues individual to each site selector, including things like the condition of the roof. 

Great drone videos also showcase the overall market as well as other tenants/traffic generators proximate to the site providing a “feel” of the prospective site and its place in the market. Not commonplace as little as five years ago, drone videos are now considered an essential marketing tool for most properties.

Virtual property tours, meanwhile, are best for showcasing individual spaces and amenities. A virtual tour is an easy way to allow your prospects to “walk” the property and truly experience it without a site visit. This is especially important for making it onto the shortlist of out-of-town prospects. 

With the right equipment, you can capture drone photography and produce virtual tours on your own. Alternatively, you can cost-effectively outsource the production to a third-party vendor, who can provide valuable “post-production” work such as labeling streets, traffic counts, and many other points of information. 

3. Sharpen Your Email Marketing Strategy

Email remains a highly effective tool for connecting with prospective tenants. So how do you make your email stand out in a crowded inbox? 

The first step is personalization—and that involves more than plugging the recipient’s name into your greeting. When you have a highly targeted list of prospects, you can customize your message to their unique needs. 

For example, if your property is ideally situated for a drive-through window, you would highlight that in messages to a quick-service restaurant that is expanding online order and pickup. 

Once you’ve personalized your message, several other factors can make the difference between an email that gets sent to the trash and one that gets a reply. 

Consider the following factors as you hone your email marketing strategy:

• Attention-grabbing subject line: Clear, concise, and specific subject lines will garner attention so recipients are more likely to open your email. 

When marketing a commercial real estate property, you may want to highlight a few of the property’s key features in your subject line, such as the square footage, location, or a unique trait. Just don’t try to squeeze in every feature—research shows seven-word subject lines get the highest engagement.

• Intriguing content: Your goal is not to get a signed lease immediately after your first email to a prospect—although that would be ideal! A more realistic goal is to pique their curiosity so they want to learn more about what your property has to offer, but always include a leasing plan and a labeled aerial photo so the prospect can easily vet the basics.

With that in mind, focus your email content on the top benefits your property offers to a specific prospect. Keep it short and focused, and link to your property’s landing page. That will entice readers to click and learn more.

• The right timing: The best time to send business emails tends to be midweek, according to studies that analyze open and click rates. However, results vary among different audiences.

You’ll want to analyze your marketing emails over time to determine what days and times have the highest engagement. Most importantly, when sending emails with a strong “contact us” message, you’ll want to ensure the email goes out at a time when you will be in the office, ready to pick up the phone and respond to inquiries.

4. Track Your Marketing Activity and Customize Follow Up

Once you’ve captured the attention of a prospect, you don’t want to blunder the opportunity by forgetting to follow up. Ideally, you’ll want your email platform to be integrated with a pipeline management tool that allows you to manage activity with each prospect.

One of the many benefits of email marketing is that it provides clear metrics on the results of each email you send. Your CRM system will show you who opened your emails and who clicked links within the message. This will enable you to customize a follow-up message depending on their level of engagement.

For example, if a prospect has not opened your prior email, you may want to revamp your subject line or try sending the message at a different time. Conversely, if someone has been opening and clicking the links in your emails, you may want to follow up with an invitation to your property in person.

Leveraging email templates in your CRM system can help you automate this follow-up activity—so you can spend your time nurturing your most promising leads.

Take Your Commercial Real Estate Marketing to the Next Level

In an age when everyone is bombarded with countless marketing messages every day, a thoughtful, personalized approach can help you stand out from the crowd. 

Discover how Retailsphere can help you take your commercial real estate marketing to the next level. Book a demo today.

The post How to Level Up Your Retail Real Estate Marketing Campaign: A Retailsphere Guide appeared first on Retailsphere.

When you begin the process of filling a vacancy, prospecting often feels like a numbers game. You want to cast your net as wide as possible to initiate as many potential tenant opportunities as you can. Through the leasing process many of these prospects will decide it's just not the right fit and will fall off, but the more interest you have, the more assured you can be that your vacancy is going to be filled. 

And in preparation of your initial outreach, you start collecting prospective tenants’ contact information and possibly a few notes on each. It’s easy to get a high level understanding of a brand and add them to your list that quickly grows to dozens of prospects. Once you have this list built, it’s as simple as exporting and adding them to your CRM where you can bulk email everyone to see who is interested. 

You may wait a few days to hear back from a few of the brands that are currently expanding and could be interested. Over time some of these brands lose interest and in the end you may have one or two that want a lease agreement. Sound about right? 

While we admit, there’s not a one size fits all solution for prospecting, the current retail landscape makes it more important than ever to only reach out to the retailers that are a good fit. Retailers have plenty of options and dozens of people asking them to fill their space. And unfortunately, your initial research and outreach efforts could have left several great prospects out of your leasing process.

In our experience, mass bulk email blasts result in impersonal and uninteresting inquiry emails that are easy to overlook and are often sent straight to the trash by the prospect list that you’ve worked so hard to build. 

So how can you get better responses? Targeted email outreach

Instead of collecting dozens of potential tenant contacts to reach out to, it may be time to start doing more in-depth research of your targets, and only reach out to the top 5 or 6 prospects. We believe that your initial research should actually help you trim this list to a few retailers that could actually fill the space. 

When you reach out to fewer targets, this allows you to tailor each email to that retailer, showing why your space is their best choice. And when your email feels educated and specific, you’ll see your response rate skyrocket.

But this in-depth research takes time and most platforms lack the necessary information, right? That's where Retailsphere can help. 

Our detailed retailer profiles give you all of the information you need, on one page, in an easy to digest format. If we don’t have the information you want, you can always submit a research request and let our team get it for you, including site selector contact information. 

Once you start the outreach process, you can link this information to your notes in our Spaces CRM tool, creating a fully integrated leasing tool that will help you improve your outreach and placement rate. 

It’s time to stop exporting hundreds of retail contacts and sending blast emails. With Retailsphere’s extensive national, regional and local database of retailers and contacts, you can build targeted prospect lists and start sending better outreach emails that get real responses.

The post Blasting Prospecting Emails Might be Easy, but Targeting Delivers Results appeared first on Retailsphere.

What is big data, and how can you use it to gain a competitive advantage? Read on to discover answers to top questions about the uses of big data in retail real estate.

What Is Big Data?

Real estate brokers, landlords, tenants, buyers, and sellers have always relied on data to make decisions. However, analyzing a handful of data points—such as square footage, vacancy rates, sales per square foot, and traffic scores—is not the same as leveraging big data. 

More than a buzzword, big data is a term that describes a large volume of data from a variety of sources. The interpretation of a wide range of data variables is a valuable tool for real estate professionals and can lead to not only more deals but also better deals done faster.

The information age has made it possible for you to access infinite data about almost any topic. And now, innovators are finding new ways to collect and analyze that infinite data to create business intelligence. Retail real estate is no exception. 

In addition to traditional data used in real estate transactions, such as demographics and comps, a variety of other variables can help you predict the future and make stronger decisions. Non-traditional data might include customer reviews, social media updates, and even shopper movements within buildings. 

Whether you’re a property owner or a broker, big data can create impactful insights. The trick is learning how to harness it. That’s where analytics tools come into play.

What Tools Can Help Real Estate Brokers Make Sense of Big Data?

Conventional methods of analyzing data—like complex Excel spreadsheets—don’t work with big data. Analysts simply can’t bring together and sift through tens of millions of data points quickly enough to deliver real-time, actionable insights. 

That’s where technology solutions come in. Machine learning algorithms make it significantly easier to aggregate and interpret disparate sources of data.

However, collecting the data and building accurate algorithms takes time and skilled talent. That’s why many CRE brokers and landlords subscribe to database solutions to aggregate the data they need.

If you are considering such a solution, it’s important to ensure the company has a robust process for ensuring data accuracy and timeliness. Quality databases pull information from multiple sources, provide transparency on the origination of each data point and go the extra mile to ensure accuracy and timeliness. 

How Can Big Data Empower Retail Real Estate Dealmakers?

When seeking new tenants, retail property landlords and investors want more than a retailer that can pay the rent check next month. They want to attract brands with strong long-term growth prospects. New tenants should complement their existing tenant mix and boost the overall image of the shopping center or mall.

How do you identify the retailers that meet that definition of good tenants? Enter, big data and predictive analytics. 

By analyzing comprehensive data sets, you can narrow down your prospect list to a few retailers that would be a perfect match for your space. You’ll want access to a database of retailers’ site selection criteria so you know what they look for in their space. This involves frontage and size requirements, parking ratios, traffic counts, demographics, and co-tenancy with other businesses. Then, you can compare that with your space to determine if there’s a match. 

Meanwhile, mobility and point of sale data can tell powerful stories about the foot traffic and sales a retailer sees at their other locations. That information, combined with social media conversations and customer reviews, will give you a better understanding of the brand’s strength and the impact it can have on the overall sales per square foot of the property 

Big data can also help you predict when you might have tenants vacating soon. For example, Retailsphere’s closures prediction algorithm scores tenants on their likelihood to close, based on a combination of variables. Equipped with this knowledge, you’ll be better prepared to fill their space if they do need to close the location.

How Are Retail Tenants Using Big Data to Find Space?

Just as you can use big data to find tenants, retailers are using big data to identify the places where they need to have a presence. In fact, retailers allocate millions of dollars to location intelligence to better understand who visits their stores, for how long, and where else they shop – before and after the store visit. 

Mobile devices allow retailers to access a treasure trove of information on consumers’ habits and traffic patterns by “geo-fencing” a property or even an individual store. That data—combined with other information such as demographics, drive times, and proximity to competitors—helps inform site selection decisions with a high degree of precision due to the granular level of trade area information. 

Additionally, location analytics gives retailers insights into how their competitors are doing and helps them establish benchmarks for individual stores. Location-based insights can also be used to improve merchandising. That might include offering a better selection of products based on local demographics or changing a store layout. 

What Are Other Uses for Big Data in Retail Real Estate?

Big data has many other uses beyond tenant prospecting and site selection. The use cases continue to expand as more information is collected every day through sensors and other devices connected with Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

For example, complex data sets and predictive analytics can play a powerful role in forecasting property valuations and lease rates. 

Research by McKinsey found that analyzing non-traditional data, such as proximity to a 4-store hotel or the number of cafes within a mile, can more accurately predict areas with strong potential for price appreciation than traditional data alone.

Big data can also help property managers improve efficiencies and make capital expenditure decisions. Smart building systems generate a constant stream of data about equipment performance, energy consumption, and more. 

Harnessing this data can help you reduce your carbon footprint and avoid capital expenditures by fixing equipment before it breaks down.

Leverage the Power of Big Data

Real estate agents, brokers, and owners have traditionally relied on a combination of intuition and historical data to make decisions. Thanks to big data, you now have the ability to layer on predictive analytics to fuel even greater business intelligence. 

Schedule a demo to discover how Retailsphere can help you tap into the power of big data.

The post How Is Big Data Impacting Retail Real Estate appeared first on Retailsphere.