| A Weekly PropTech Newsletter bringing you industry updates from across the real estate spectrum |
|
|
| We always enjoy hearing from other futurists and consultants in the retail space, and a recent list of trends from Michael Zakkour, founder and chief strategist at 5 New Digital, caught our attention. While many of his insights align with what we’ve been seeing ourselves, it’s always reassuring when industry leaders share similar visions for the future. For example, Zakkour predicts “the continued closings of old, non-connected malls” and the rise of new models that evolve with how people live, work, shop, and socialize. This evolution is something retail property owners should take to heart, and just happens to be a key tenant of our business!
We’re also seeing the gamification of retail gain momentum (though we’d argue that blending physical and digital shopping experiences—”phygital”—is hardly new). Drones are making waves beyond delivery, and in-person shopping continues to hold significant value for today’s consumers. For those of you attending SXSW Sydney, be sure to check out our LinkedIn post—David will be hosting a CEO panel. Let us know if you’ll be there! |
|
| The Gamification of Retail: Why Phygital Is the Future [WWD] Set amid a backdrop of rising prices, fierce competition, and fragmenting traditional sales channels, both retail and CPG companies are in a race to edge out their competitors. Their not-so-secret move? Going phygital. Futuristic as it may sound, the phygital is here, now — and it’s not going anywhere.
Saks offers seamless shopping and fulfillment [Chain Store Age] Saks Fifth Avenue is rolling out an updated Salesforce platform, including Customer 360 CRM apps and upcoming deployments of the Data Cloud data harmonization solution and Agentforce artificial intelligence-based agent-building tool. The retailer hopes to obtain deeper understanding of customer preferences and provide a seamless customer journey. |
| New Report Finds Shoppers Value In-store Shopping [WWD] The study surveyed more than 1,300 U.S. shoppers and found that while e-commerce is flourishing, consumers are also partial to having an in-store experience. Sixty-one percent of consumers surveyed said they enjoy in-store shopping for the experience of trying on products, comparing items and more — which is up 21 percent from last year’s study.
Klarna partners with fellow fintech Adyen to bring buy now, pay later into physical stores [CNBC] Klarna said that it had entered into an agreement with Adyen to add its buy now, pay later (BNPL) products to physical payment terminals. Klarna will be included as an option across more than 450,000 Adyen payment terminals in brick-and-mortar locations as a result of the deal. |
|
| Ikea’s fleet of 250 autonomous drones takes stock of warehouse inventory without any human intervention [Business Insider] More than 250 self-flying drones are operating at Ikea’s 73 distribution centers. Thanks to its partnership with Verity, Ikea has made progress with drones while its competitors lag. |
|
| Report: Less than 5% of retail space available at end of August [Chain Store Age] CoStar Analytics says that just 4.5% of the total amount of retail space was available for lease at the end of August. Of the retail spaces that are available, most of them are concentrated in older properties. Over 75% of the retail space available for lease as of the end of August were located in properties that were built in the prior century, while just 11% of available retail space was built after 2010.
Plans for water park at Mall of America include dozens of slides, rides [CBS News] Mall of America is known for it’s stomach-dropping features. The plan now is to have underwater thrills, too. The plan is to have a giant wave pool, 30 different slides and rides, and several more pools and spas. |
| Are Twin Cities area malls having yet another resurgence? [Star Tribune] Malls are back — again. After millions spent on renovations and a renewed push to focus more on experiential retail, Twin Cities malls finally saw a bump in traffic this summer, a big one for some of them. Five of eight metro malls tracked by analytics firm Placer.ai saw more visitors than in 2019. And the number of people visiting Mall of America last month was up over 15% year over year.
Can a traffic-free Oxford Street match its global rivals? [Guardian] Unveiling a £150m plan earlier this week to ban all traffic on the capital’s famous shopping street, the mayor suggested that the West End shopping thoroughfare could be revived to rival Times Square, La Rambla or the Champs-Élysées. |
|
| The future of shopping malls with Michael Zakkour [Yahoo! Finance] Michael Zakkour, founder and chief strategist at retail consulting company 5 New Digital, shares his insights on the future of shopping malls and the trends shaping their transformation. |
|
|
