Forget teens. Malls want to be hangouts for adults

By Eric Wolff
North County Times
Shopping malls want to be Starbucks.
In the same way that coffee shops transcended the idea of selling caffeinated beverages to become community hubs, malls want to transcend shopping and become the place where everyone — and not just teenagers — come to meet, socialize, or get some work done. Five San Diego County malls recently unveiled multimillion dollar renovations that introduced new, socially oriented seating arrangements, upgraded food courts and dining options, and free Wi-Fi — all intended to make malls a destination place to spend non-shopping time. Mall owners hope a rising tide of new amenities, along with a busy schedule of events, will lift all tenants.
“If we enrich their lives, they’re going to come back to us and shop with us,” said Steve Dumas, senior vice president of design for Westfield USA.
Malls have been under pressure along with the rest of retail when sales plummeted during the recession and subsequent sluggish recovery. After hitting a sales peak of $416.20 per leased square foot in 2007, sales fell 12 percent to $365.39 in 2009, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, an industry nonprofit. Compounding matters, the national vacancy rate for super regional malls — malls with 800,000 square feet or more, including Fashion Valley and Westfield UTC — jumped from 6.7 percent in 2006 to 10.6 percent in 2009....Read the complete article

Black Friday Results Are In: The Centerpiece of a Huge Multi-Day ‘Bricks-and-Clicks’ Shopping Spree

Black Friday Results Are In: The Centerpiece of a Huge
Multi-Day ‘Bricks-and-Clicks’ Shopping Spree

By Brad Tuttle for
Time Magazine

Nov. 26, 2012

  If Black Friday was just a day when retailers were concerned solely with in-store sales, then Black Friday 2012 was something of a dud. But the idea of “Black Friday” has expanded far beyond a mere 24 hours, as well as the traditional in-store experience.

The retail research firm ShopperTrak estimates that shoppers spent $11.2 billion at physical stores on Black Friday. That represents a 1.8% decline from Black Friday of 2011. Does this mean that the importance of Black Friday to retailers is also on the decline?

Not remotely. What’s happened, then, is that Black Friday has grown so big that it cannot be contained in a single 24-hour period, nor are its sales and promotions limited to the stuff displayed on shelves and racks at the mall. Today, “Black Friday” begins on Thanksgiving morning (if not earlier) when retailers flood e-mail subscribers with special online shopping offers. It stretches on to Thanksgiving night, when stores open their doors for Black Friday door busters several hours before Friday has truly arrived. On through the long holiday weekend the stream of sales and promotions continues, encompassing every mode of shopping known to man.

As the Associated Press reported, in-store sales on Friday itself fell, naturally enough, directly as a result of so many stores opening on Thanksgiving night. Because shoppers were whipping out credit cards and cash at Target, Walmart, Toys R Us, and elsewhere on Thursday night, they (probably) weren’t loading up their shopping carts the following morning, the actual Friday of “Black Friday.”...Read the complete article

NRF Report: Election 2012 in review: The impact on retail

 

 

 

NRF Report: Election 2012 in review: The impact on retail

By Craig Shearman, VP, Government Affairs PR |

November 7, 2012

After $6 billion in campaign spending and a barrage of political ads in an election that hinged largely on jobs and the economy and which will impact a wide variety of public policy issues important to the retail industry, Americans woke up this morning to a familiar government. President Obama won a clear victory over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, with a 50-48 percent lead in the popular vote and a total of 303-206 electoral votes, but voters left Congress divided.

While some news organizations reported slightly conflicting numbers this morning, the New York Times said Republicans retained their majority in the House 232-191 while Democrats remained in control of the Senate 52-45. Some races remain undecided but are not expected to affect the majority in either chamber.
While Obama’s win was decisive, it was built on slim majorities in just a handful of battleground states, and Obama is the first president reelected since Woodrow Wilson with a smaller margin in the Electoral College than his first-term election. Out of more than 120 million votes cast, the final margin of victory hinged on fewer than 360,000 votes in Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Virginia.
As a status-quo election, it is difficult to discern a clear message from the results. The narrow nature of Obama’s reelection margin suggests more of a validation of his campaign strategy than a vindication of his first term policies, and House and Senate leadership are likely to return to familiar scripts in the next session of Congress.
Down the ballot, Senate Democrats defended their majority thanks to strong recruits in open-seat races and a series of self-inflicted wounds among Republican Senate candidates.

...Read the complete article

Do you know who created the modern shopping mall?

Well, his name was Victor Gruen and he was a true visionary.
Odds are you’ve never heard of him, which is a shame because this
architect from Vienna  revolutionized the way people shop in America,
and around the world, and we all owe him a big thanks! Read on... 

Hallandale Beach, FL mall chosen for coveted spot on the 2012 DMM Print directory front cover!

December 2011                   

After weeks of deliberation, The Village of Gulf Stream Park in Hallandale Beach, FL has been selected as the featured property on the cover of the upcoming 2012, 33rd edition of the Directory of Major Malls (pre-orders are now being taken, with shipping scheduled by end of January 2012)!

"Every year, we search through the list of properties in our database, looking for just the right one for the cover of our newest book which has metamorphosed, just as the industry has, into providing coverage way beyond the standard enclosed mall retail project. Retail has changed dramatically over the past decade and we now see it tied in with a
variety of other venues and attractions. Therefore, we try to reflect this in
our cover images as well.  Historically, our covers have always featured an exciting new retail project or one that has experienced a major renovation very recently," explained Tama J. Shor, Publisher of Directory of Major Malls. "When we saw this recently opened retail destination in Florida with its stunning architecture and vibrant shopper activity, plus its location and tie-in to the race track, we knew we had the right mall to present on the cover on our 2012 directory and that they'd be very excited about it, too," she added.

More about DMM...

For over 30 years, DMM has offered the most comprehensive and accurate information on major open-air shopping centers and malls which are approximately 200k and above in size. Listings cover the spectrum of center types including: enclosed malls, open-air community, power, value-retail centers, as well as lifestyle/specialty/mixed-use projects of any
size. The 2012 directory has over 2,300 pages packed with data on those
properties. You can also subscribe to the powerful yet user-friendly DMM
Online!

Visit http://shoppingcenters.com/topstory12-2b,
for special money-saving offers on the 2012 Print Directory PRE-ORDER, as well as DMM Online for immediate access.

Directory of Major Malls data is available in a suite of formats including Online, Print directory, Custom databases and reports, and Licensed
datasets for GIS integration and analysis.

America's Most Visited Shopping Malls

By Joe Yogerst
TravelandLeisure.com

For most Americans, it’s just not the holidays without a mall visit. Chicago-area Woodfield prepped weeks before the Black Friday shopping blitz, debuting an Ice Palace with a light show and Santa photo-ops.

After all, its parking lots are crowded whatever the season. Woodfield gets 27 million annual visitors—more than any other Illinois attraction (only 8.69 million make it to Chicago’s Navy Pier). A heady mix of shopping, eating, and entertainment options has turned malls across the U.S. into similar tourism magnets and coined the phrase “destination malls.”

Read complete article

'Tis the Season for Shopping Local: Mom-and-Pop Retailers Hopeful About Holiday Sales

A positive outlook on the upcoming holiday season...
  
New Manta Survey Reveals Half of Small Retailers Are More Optimistic About Holiday Sales This Year Compared to Last Year...
 

 'Tis the Season for Shopping Local: Mom-and-Pop Retailers Hopeful About Holiday Sales

Manta Launches SMB Wellness Index, Reveals New Business Activity on the Rise in Q2

COLUMBUS, Ohio--November 1, 2011--As big-box retailers like Wal-Mart reinstate layaway payment plans to combat an expected drop in holidays sales, nearly half of small retailers (49 percent) say they are more optimistic about holiday sales this year versus 2010, according to a new survey from Manta, the largest online SMB community. The survey of nearly 800 small retailers, most with fewer than 10 employees, also revealed that four in 10 are heading into the busiest shopping season of the year with better sales than they had last year.   Click to read the entire article ...