| A Weekly PropTech Newsletter bringing you industry updates from across the real estate spectrum |
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| Before we kickoff, we want to express our sadness about the devastation happening in Los Angeles. Our hearts are with our friends, colleagues, and the communities that are impacted. We’re keeping you all in our thoughts and prayers.
We teased some exciting news coming early 2025 at the end of last year, and the time has come to share: NextRivet and Coresight Research and joining forces to launch CoreRivet! This new offering combines Coresight’s expertise in market insights and digital strategy, with our proven track record in digital innovation and implementation, to provide a holistic approach that bridges strategy and execution for our real estate and retail clients. We could not be more thrilled to be partnering with the powerhouse team at Coresight and to bring this truly differentiated way of helping clients to market! We’ll be sharing the news this week at the National Retail Federation’s big event in NY, and we’d love to connect if you’re there too and would like to learn more. Otherwise, check out our new website and our press release announcing the news, and drop us a line on LinkedIn if you’d like to chat and learn more.
There was other news this week of course – including a great article in Retail Touchpoints that includes commentary from us here at NextRivet, as well as from John Mercer from Coresight, about where developers and retailers should be focusing their mall strategy. There were also a few stories about the success of brick-and-mortar in various avenues, and yet another merger that could impact the future of the mall. |
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| Coresight Research and NextRivet Announce Strategic Partnership to Redefine Retail and Real Estate with Insight-Driven Innovation [Retail Touchpoints] Coresight Research, the leading research and advisory firm specializing in retail and technology, and NextRivet, a digital innovation and implementation consultancy specializing in retail real estate, are excited to announce a strategic partnership and the launch of CoreRivet. The CoreRivet service is designed to empower retail and real estate executives with actionable insights and cutting-edge technologies that drive sales growth, operational efficiencies, and elevated customer engagement.
Why An RFID Label On A 72¢ Box Of Crayons Is Reason To Be Tickled Pink [Forbes] A shopping trip in Texas to one of Walmart’s many superstores yielded many items with price points under three dollars, including a couple for less than 75¢. Each of these products shared something in common — a serialized radio frequency identification (RFID) smart label.
Holiday e-commerce hits a record as shoppers choose phones over stores [RetailDive] This past holiday season, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, online retail sales rose 8.7% year over year to a record $241.4 billion not adjusted for inflation, according to the most recent figures from Adobe Analytics. |
| Poshmark is teaming up with Loop to resell non-returnable items [ModernRetail] A new partnership between Poshmark and the returns provider Loop aims to make it easier for shoppers to resell non-returnable items. The offering is open to Loop’s approximately 3,800 U.S. merchants. If a merchant decides to participate in the program, its customers will see a “Resell on Poshmark” button in their returns portal next to products they cannot return, either because they are final sale or outside the returns window.
Walmart, DroneUp End Delivery Partnership [Sourcing Journal] Walmart and DroneUp had operated together in four major metropolitan areas through much of 2024: Dallas-Fort Worth; Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Tampa, Fla. But determined it would focus its efforts exclusively on Texas suspending drone delivery offerings at the other three locales.
Serve Robotics Raises $86M Amid Growing Last-Mile Automation Trend [Supply Chain 247] Serve Robotics, which specializes in autonomous sidewalk delivery, has secured $86 million in funding to grow its operations and refine its delivery systems. This latest investment strengthens Serve’s ability to scale its operations, improve its technology, and address the growing demand for efficient last-mile delivery solutions. |
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| Malls’ New Success Strategy: Attracting Gen Zers Hungry for Social Contact [RetailTouchpoints] Retail TouchPoints gathered insights from experts across the store design, experience, real estate and technology realms to find out how and where developers and retailers should be focusing their mall strategy. The panel of experts includes: Kyle Spencer and David Blumenfeld, Co-founders, NextRivet.
Barnes & Noble sells ‘a better book’ than Amazon: CEO credits bookstore experience at revived chain [GeekWire] Barnes & Noble went from near-bust to back in action and the CEO of the nation’s largest remaining book chain credits a revived, independent-minded experience for helping the company take on Amazon. In a new segment on “PBS News Hour”, James Daunt said the once-mighty Barnes & Noble has come “back from the brink” after closing hundreds of stores.
Retail Is Fashionable With Property Investors Again, but Only the Unflashy Kind [The Wall Street Journal] Open-air neighborhood shopping centers are one of the hardest types of commercial real estate to find space in. They have been fuller than America’s e-commerce warehouses for almost two years, according to data from CBRE, partly because there has been a flood of industrial warehouse construction and practically none for retail. |
| Why Brick-and-Mortar Resale Is Flourishing [Business of Fashion] In the US, brick-and-mortar resale is flourishing, with the number of shops dealing in secondhand sales and consignment growing 7 percent over the past two years. Secondhand stores focused on physical locations have stayed competitive by offering a level of convenience, curation and customer service that isn’t easily replicated online.
Mall re-maker Pacific Retail spent $400 million on buys and redevelopments in 2024 [Chain Store Age] Scores of regional malls in the United States may have seen their customer appeal wane, but they still sit on premier property. Pacific Retail Capital Partners’ (PRCP) corporate mission is reviving these plum locations, and it reports having invested more than $400 million on buying and redeveloping such prime locations in 2024.
Are ‘Unflashy’ Strip Malls and Open-Air Shopping Centers All the Rage for Retail? [RetailWire] With some publications heralding the return of the shopping mall to cultural prominence — whether via attending to the desires of Gen Z shoppers or through redevelopment beyond retail concerns — one thread appears to have been left somewhat unattended: the future of the humble strip mall, or open-air retail shopping center. |
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| A zombie mall store king is born: JCPenney merges with Forever 21 owner [CNN Business] JCPenney is merging with a company that owns a number of other once-bankrupt clothing stores, including Forever 21 and Brooks Brothers, to form a new company that will hold significant sway over the future of America’s malls. |
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