DMM Retail Industry e-News Issue #217

No Coal for (Most) Retailers this Holiday Season

The 2021 holiday looks like it’s going to be a pretty good year for most retailers. That’s according to a recent WWD/Klarna report. Klarna, a global payments and shopping service, recently released their 2021 “Holidays Unwrapped” Report. Based on that report, a recent article on WWD.com noted that while supply chain disruptions threaten to muddy the waters a bit, online and in-store sales of fashion apparel and luxury goods items are expected by retail analysts to be particularly good. “With physical stores, Klarna’s research found that big-box retailers, department stores, and malls ‘are still beloved by shoppers.’ The data showed that big-box retailers at 62% ‘are the most popular place to shop this holiday season, followed by department stores (37%) and malls (34%),’” WWD noted

Case Study: Good Odds on Retail in the State of Nevada 

Drive-thrus? Yes! Big Box retails? Not so much. Is the Amazon effect real? Yes. Are there stores that are expanding? Yes, particularly luxury retail and gyms. As the world emerges from COVID and people get back into the real world, despite having adjusted to buying groceries and conducting meetings with 100 or more people simultaneously online, shoppers are craving the real-world feel and touch and gratification of getting something now, not just quickly via cardboard box. In a recent article on NevadaBusiness.com, Andrew Ciarrocchi, Sr. VP, management and operations of real estate development and management company, The Howard Hughes Corporation, said while retail is becoming a strong mix of actual stores with an online presence, online stores are stealthily begging for the credibility and gravitas the real world has to offer. “You always hear on the news that everything is online, online, online, but you don’t hear as much about the folks like Fabletics that was purely online and now has hundreds of brick-and-mortar stores,” Ciarrocchi said.

Got a Craving for Nostalgia? Remember When…?

Movies like Wonder Woman 1984 and the emergence of a sequel to TV hit “That 70’s Show” called “That 90’s Show” help demonstrate America’s love of nostalgia. Whether a new Star Wars film blatantly borrows from the first one, or a movie is set in the 80s because, well, leg warmers, of course, jumping into the past brings us comfort. It’s like a gooey grilled cheese or a warm pot pie on winter’s evening, they warm the body and soul. The folks at RetailDive.com were feeling rather nostalgic recently, listing and detailing their top seven retailers that once populated malls but are now gone. “When brands are comprehensively experiential, I think that they lodge themselves in our psyche. When people have really strong memories about retail brands, it’s because it’s gone so far beyond the product that those retail establishments were designed to sell,” said Deb Gabor, CEO of Sol Marketing. Your humble e-newsletter editor remembers five of the seven – and has fond memories of two of them (guess which). Did you remember all seven? What stores would be on your list? Share with us on Twitter!