How Retail Can Get More Personal with Their Customers
You’ve heard about “data” and “personalization” but you’re not sure how it can precisely help you. A recent edition of Adweek magazine featured a top five list of tips that retail could follow to increase their personalization efforts with their customers. Among the tips; collect good data; be data led, not data driven; and focus on your customers’ biggest pain points and fix them. Most importantly, follow the “golden rule” when collecting data on your customers. “Be overt about it. Make it clear to the customer about the value proposition you’re going to offer them,” said Forrester principal analyst Brendan Witcher.
Former GM Assembly Plant Getting New Life as Multi-Use Retail
More than two decades ago, General Motors churned out cars from the North Tarrytown assembly plant in New York on the banks of the Hudson River. After years of planning and delays, construction could soon begin on a 67-acre mixed-use development project that includes a mix of retail, office space, housing, a hotel and parkland. According to the Hudson Valley Business Journal, this kind of multi-use project is on the rise, with the Edge-on-Hudson expected to include “1,177 units of condominiums, townhouses and rental apartments; a 140-room boutique hotel; 135,000 square feet of retail space and 35,000 square feet of office space [and] more than 16 acres of parkland and a promenade along the water.” Peter Chavkin, lead development consultant with SunCal, said, “I think the idea that we’re going to have renters and homeowners in the same place, along with public parks and waterfront all in the same community, is really compelling to today’s luxury buyer.”
Retail, Future-Proofed: Improved Destinations, Smaller Stores, Grocery
Earlier this month, our friends overseas with the Urban Land Institute held a real estate conference in Berlin to discuss various issues. In a report on ULI’s website, “The Future of Retail” focused on the how shopping centers are changing and the things developers could be doing better, including adding supermarkets as anchor tenants to bring customers in on a daily basis. “The biggest change for the retail market is a shifting focus from a distribution mechanism to a brand-based function. When Amazon Prime can deliver items the same day, the best way to keep bringing customers back is an ever-changing merchandise mix,” said Scott Malkin, founder of luxury outlet pioneer Value Retail. A video of the presentation can be viewed here.
DMM: How to Dig into our Data
Sometimes big piles of data can be overwhelming. Finding the data should be as simple as possible, and that’s what we here at ShoppingCenters.com aim to deliver every day. If you ever have trouble navigating our website, we have a helpful list of instructions about how to get what you’re looking for. We also have human support teams standing by to assist you, and a helpful introductory video to get you started.
