RetailSource: Retail Design, Construction and Visual Merchandising » economy

Site Surveys, Fixture Installations, Graphic Change Outs, and Rebranding Help Retailers Survive the Downturn

njohnson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:16:16 +0000

While the retail industry as a whole has suffered over the past few years, some service companies have found a way to thrive by helping retailers maintain, update, and reinvent their brands more efficiently. Dynamic Resources is one of the best examples of companies helping retailers streamline the process of store construction, fixture installation, renovation, maintenance, graphic installation and site surveys throughout Europe and North America. One of the ironies of retailing is that this type of activity often increases during a downturn because retailers have to find the perfect presentation, as well as the perfect product and price point, needed to attract and retain a more discerning, money conscious customer.

Competing with national competitors such as Davaco, Nationwide, and The Beam Team, Dynamic has continued to grow during the tight economic conditions since 2008. With offices in both the US and the UK, Dynamic rolls out programs across the US and Europe. They are planning expansion into South America and the Far East as they see an increasing number of their retailer partners moving in this direction.

Gerry Walsh, Dynamic Managing Director in the UK points to several specific reasons they have been successful. Not suprisingly, service leads the list. Dynamic starts with an attitude that customer service, defined as constantly providing solutions, not problems, to their clients, is the foundation for all their activity. Another strong point is their extensive and long standing relationships with local installation and maintenance companies. Project managers marshal these resources for each project and they have a systematic approach that insures timely completion with the highest quality standards. Project information is available to retailers and the team online via their propietary iReact project management system.

More detail and an impressive series of photos from recent projects is available here.

Black Friday 2010 Results, Summary and Trends

njohnson — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:22:21 +0000

Black Friday Results
Mixed results for Black Friday 2010 encouraged retailers but were not overwhelmingly positive. Continued discounting is anticipated as retailers seek to ensure increased sales volume for the remainder of the holiday shopping season. Here are some Black Friday results as reported by leading retail organizations and retail trend watchers.

National Retail Federation
The NRF Black Friday Survey for 2010 reports increased sales for 2010 totaling over $45 billion. Shoppers competing for Black Friday deals increased from 195 million in 2009 to over 212 million this year.
Spend per customer also increased from an average of $345 to about $365 in 2010.

International Council of Shopping Centers
ICSC’s pre-Black Friday predictions for increased sales and traffic proved to be a bit high but were on track overall. Their Black Friday Survey also showed over 75% of shoppers would visit at least one discount store and the majority also planned to shop for themselves. Increased traffic at Walmart seemed to bear this out.

Wall Street Journal
The WSJ published a number of Black Friday 2010 articles and reporting “another uncertain holiday season for retailers.” The small year over last increase in overall Black Friday sales results (+0.3%) was partly attributed to early November discounting that had already eaten up some customer spending budget.

Black Friday Trends
Continuing a Black Friday trend from last year, many large retailers opened as early as midnight in an attempt to capture that first burst of customer spending. By 4:00 AM over 24% of shoppers were already in the stores. With an average spend of $365.34, retailers wanted to be at the front end of each customer’s shopping expedition.

Another promising trend is a swing toward more discretionary big ticket buys such as jewelry and electronics. Gift card sales remained popular, increasing marginally from Black Friday 2009.

Shoppers also continue to limit their exposure to fees and interest charges by using cash instead of credit cards for purchases.

Finally, the trend of shoppers taking advantage of Black Friday discounting to buy items for themselves is an interesting development that may be reflected in 2011 Black Friday advertising campaigns.

Black Friday Summary
Overall and decent Black Friday for retailers with improved traffic and sales moderated by the need to offer deep discounts. Interesting shopping trends emerged including earlier store openings and more shoppers grabbing bargains for themselves.

Q4 Ecommerce Spending Up 3%

njohnson — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:18:32 +0000

Here it is straight from the horse’s…comScore’s… mouth

RESTON, VA, February 9, 2010 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its Q4 2009 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, which showed that online retail spending reached $39 billion, up 3 percent versus year ago. Total retail e-commerce spending reached $129.8 billion for the full year 2009, marginally below the previous year’s total of $130.1 billion.

Happy days are here again! Unless of course you are a brick and mortar retailer. However isn’t everyone an online retailer now in one form or another Yahoo! Stores, Shopify, Amazon Craigslist, eBay etc etc…

Lots of interstesting stats and the full press release is here

Retail Construction Lags Retail Employment

njohnson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:24:21 +0000

Retail construction continues to stagnate and slow even as overall natioinal employment, and retail jobs in particular, begin to improve. Crains Chicago Business reports a 25 year low in retail construction activity. The report focuses on retail mall development, highlighting the recent transfer to receivership of the Block 37 mall project, however it is unclear if smaller non-mall development and single site storefront retail activity is factored into the report. Downtown, urban retail may not be suffering to the same extent as suburban mall developments.

Even as retail construction continues to falter, retail employment has finally begun to improve. The U.S. Department of Labor reports job losses are slowing down. While the U.S. economy lost 22,000 jobs overall to start 2010, the retail industry added 42,100 jobs in January. Apparel, grocery and electronics lead the way with hardware and building supplies trailing.

Retail Architectural firms continue to struggle with a contraction of billing for retail design services which began in 2008. A recent AIA survey based on information gleaned from their membership, Moody’s, McGraw Hill, and others, suggests a 2010 decline in retail construction of over 17%. This compares to an overall 13% decline for all non-residential construction. Improvement of 1.8 percent is predicted for 2011 but details for the retail industry were not broken out. Once again it is difficult to determine if these statistics include small retail infill and tenent improvements or only development projects.

Some indicators point to overall economic improvement in 2010 but both residential and non-residential construction typically lag emplyment and general economic recovery. Is February too soon to start looking forward to next year?

Retail Space and Retailing in Seattle

njohnson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:01:25 +0000

The always engaging and informative KUOW Weekday program, hosted by Steve Scher explores the current state of Seattle’s commercial real estate environment with a focus on storefront retail.

Our neighborhoods are full of empty storefronts and office buildings. Stalled development projects have left holes in the ground. How is commercial real estate fairing? Will developers be able secure loans for pending projects? How can they attract tenants for existing buildings? How are empty spaces changing where we live? What small businesses would improve your neighborhood?

Of particular interest is the input from Brian Surratt, development director of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development. He discusses several programs the city is actively implementing to provide loans, funding and support services to small and micro business including retailers. If you are a retailer in Seattle you should catch this program. Listen to the podcast or stream it here.