Thursday, November 5th, 2009
When I heard that Louis Vuitton was opening a store in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, last month I was completely intrigued by this unexpected announcement. So I decided to research and came across some interesting information that has shed light not only onto Louis Vuitton’s decision but the luxury market as a whole.
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Tags: Louis Vuitton, luxury, Mongolia, recession, Retail
Posted in Real Estate, Retail, Specialty Retail | No Comments »
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Reprinted from CrainesNewYork.com
The Limited’s SoHo pop-up shop, doing brisk business, will stick around through the holidays.
More than just a limited engagement, trendy apparel retailer The Limited is extending its four-day pop-up shop in SoHo through the end of December, the company said Thursday.
Last week, Limited opened a temporary, store at 134 Spring St., between Wooster and Greene streets, after a decade-long absence from the New York market. But executives of the Columbus, Ohio-based firm were “pleasantly surprised, as it performed at the same level as one of their top-tier stores,” according to a spokeswoman. Sales, which were not disclosed, were high enough to persuade the company to extend the 3,400-square-foot shop through Dec. 28. It’s a sign, retail brokers say, that the retailer might be closer to taking a permanent location here. (more…)
Tags: Christmas, Limited, new york, pop-up shop, Retail, shopping, Soho
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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Reprinted from channelnewsasia.com
Island resort Sentosa will soon be home to the world’s tallest duel roller-coaster ride and movie stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Shrek and the motley mob of Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria last spotted in Madagascar,the movie.
The Universal Studios theme-park which will be housed on the 49 hectares Resorts World at Sentosa, revealed Tuesday its two dozen attractions, including 18 rides and attractions specially created or adapted for Singapore. (more…)
Tags: amusement, attraction, Retail, Sentosa, singapore, Universal Studios
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Friday, October 9th, 2009
Lego
Lego has opened its first concept store in Concord Mills, located north of Charlotte, NC. The 4,520 square foot store has been designed to create an interaction between children with on-site master builders. The store has room for birthday parties and classes.
New World
A new world is likely to emerge in which designers rebel against long lead times and where they take their collections directly to the consumer through their own boutiques, trunk shows, and over the web.
Web Sales
Web sales are projected to reach $156 billion in 2009, representing 6% of the total U.S. retail pie
The Web Fashion Consumer
Consumers have come to expect new merchandise more frequently, thanks to the web and fast fashion retailers such as H & M. Many cannot understand why they have to wait 6 months to see the fashions seen on the runways. Buyers at department stores generally base their orders on the past, while fashion editors gravitate to the most photogenic and future looking styles, leaving the consumer stuck in the middle. This results in one facet of the fashion industry looking forward and the other looking backwards. The consequence: a consumer on one hand is told what to buy but on the other, not where to buy it.
In response, a new generation of fashion retailers is emerging on the web where news is freely given and fashion is sold. Net-a-porter with average sales of $820.00 per transaction and customers from 170 countries is one example of this new generation of merchants. The company has successfully merged its web retail site with a fashion news site catering to a new consumer who wants credible news over magazine advertisements and the most up to date fashion now.
Entertainment
Families spent 5.1% more on entertainment in 2008 than in 2009, something that has surprised many economists. As consumers tightened their pocket books and wallets one would expect entertainment to be one of the first categories to see significant decreases. But the 5.1% increase in spending equated to 16.5 billion more dollars spent in the category over 2007.
Household debt
The American family is trying to put money into savings and reduce their overall debt, but they are clearly not faring as well as one might expect in this recession. Household debt now amounts to about 125% of after tax income.
High Net Worth Individuals
Luxury retailers are faced with a significant decline in Americans with a high net worth defined as having $1,000,000 of assets available for investment. In 2008 the assets of these individuals dropped by as much as 22%. The result is a major decrease in sales at retailers such as Neiman Marcus where sales have decreased by over 20% in 2009 over 2008.
Tags: consumer, consumer spending, consumerism, entertainment, fashion, fashion trends, household income, japan, lego, luxury, online sales, online shopping, recession, Retail, versace, web sales
Posted in Culture, Real Estate, Retail, Shopping Centers, Specialty Retail, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, October 9th, 2009
In the past several years, much has been written about the proposed and controversial redevelopment plans for the boardwalk and adjacent amusement parks of Coney Island. While a great deal of the attention has been focused on the redevelopment plans of Thor Equities, the once popular Brooklyn seaside resort does not lack in alternative schemes suggested by everyone from theme park managers to the Bloomberg administration to the Municipal Art Society of New York.
In short, opposition to Thor’s plan have been centered around the firm’s plan for as many as a 1,000 hotel rooms and 500,000 square feet of retail space including some big boxes. Alternative suggestions for Coney Island range from “three or four wind in your face rides” to an “eye-popping” attraction akin to the London Eye – not bad suggestions but clearly the product of observers that lack a real sense of the historic Coney Island, let alone what is requires to make the redevelopment an economic success. (more…)
Tags: amusement, andrew lloyd webber, Bloomberg, coney island, new york, redevelopment, Retail, the phantom of the opera, theatre, Thor
Posted in Culture, Real Estate Development, Retail, Specialty Retail | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
Over the past 6 weeks we have seen our daily readership of our blogs and traffic to our web site almost double. Visitors vary widely and range from Brazil to Southeast Asia and from the Middle East and India to Europe and North America. As our readership continues to grow we will add many new points of view and share more insights derived from our projects and clients located around the world. As we grow, we want you to feel at home in our next generation of community building with the introduction of MyVillageSolution.com early next year. You can help us grow by adding your own points of view to our blogs and sending your friends links to our site.
Occasionally, one of our readers will ask us questions concerning the services we provide. In brief, we are marketplace crafters in the sense that we define a market opportunity and then craft a built environment to answer the needs of merchants, restaurants, entertainment venues and most importantly the consumer. On the surface, it may appear to the more casual reader that we are something between architects and real estate developers. While we posses many of the same skills, our core competency is our ability to interpret trends both current and future in contemporary culture and translate those into the marketplace. As such, we do extensive market research, create multi retail marketplace concepts, direct the design execution and recruit merchants.
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Tags: development, market, market research, mobile market, Real Estate, Retail, Village Solutions
Posted in Culture, Real Estate, Real Estate Development, Retail, Shopping Centers, Specialty Retail | No Comments »
Friday, September 25th, 2009
Below is a reprint of the Courier Journal article on Creation Gardens.
The owners of Creation Gardens, a distributor of produce to restaurants and the food-service industry, plans to move to a new site and expand their business.
Ron and Mollie Turnier have signed contracts to purchase about two acres of property on the northwest corner of Market and Shelby streets, including the Neurath & Underwood Funeral Home.
They plan to build a retail and commercial distribution center, featuring a 27,000 square foot building. It would include a 17,000-square-foot, regional fresh-food and produce distribution center primarily for commercial customers and a 10,000-square-foot market open to the public. (more…)
Tags: Butchertown, creation gardens, Louisville, market, Retail, urban district
Posted in Real Estate, Real Estate Development, Retail, Shopping Centers, Specialty Retail | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Whole Foods
Sales at Whole Foods continue to slide with sales down 4.8% in their last quarter. The upscale super market is facing new competition from the major chains such as Kroger and Safeway and has a core shopper problem that buys items rather than an entire cart of goods. Likewise, many of their core shoppers have switched to cheaper goods within the store and to lower priced retailers such as Traders Joe.
On top of competitive and consumer problems the company is trying to swallow a pill of bad real estate decisions. A combination of too many stores in marginal markets; markets that are too small for a new generation of larger stores up to 80,000 square feet; and high rents have significantly reduced profits. In response the chain has slowed new store openings from a planned 25-30 for 2009 but openings have been scaled back to 15.
More importantly, Whole Foods has begun a major repositioning program where it is moving away from gourmet foods to natural food and healthy eating. Likewise, founder John Mackey has vowed to remove the junk food from his store. Makes you wonder how he is going to fill up all of those oversized stores acquired in the last few years.
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Tags: economy, market, Retail, sales
Posted in Retail | 1 Comment »