“Food Halls” vs. “Food Courts” – Mall Eateries in the 21st Century
Shopping mall food courts have grown up. They’ve become “food halls” and they offer a greater variety of dining options for a more mature palette. They don’t focus on jumbo-sized meals or convenient combos, but they pile on “authentic” ambience with locally-sourced food. In a recent article on Slate.com, author Henry Grabar wrote that the food court, “is the most discredited concept in 20th-century dining, while [food halls are] the hottest new idea of the 21st. [They feature] an open floor plan, fresh food prepared in front of your eyes, a post-industrial space, or at least one with high ceilings, exposed wiring and hanging air ducts.” It seems to be working. Chris Jaskiewicz, the COO of the Gotham Organization, whose Gotham West rental building has a food hall for its ground floor, called it the “ultimate amenity.”
Where Generation “Z” Shops – You May be Surprised
Generation “Z” – those born in 1995 or later and completely immersed in a digital world may not shop where you might expect. In a new report from InMarket, a digital advertising company, found that though members of this generation “don’t know a world without the internet” they do have a few in-store shopping preferences. For example, their report found that Gen-Z prefer Ugg, The North Face, Payless, and Vans more than other generations. Why do they seem to be interested in retail when most leading thinkers suggest they are mobile and ‘net-savvy surfers and prefer to purchase things that way? Though it’s complicated, the report finds that retailers that “have created an online-to-offline brand message that resonates with a generation fixated on authenticity” seem to be the most successful with Gen-Z.
Mall in China Solves “Anti-Shopper” Stereotypes
It’s a tired stereotype, but that double-meaning introductory partial sentence is on its way to being solved by a mall in China. Global Harbour mall in Shanghai has constructed glass pods dubbed “husband rest cabins” where men can play video games for free or just sit and relax while their counterparts do the shopping. “The attitude of the female shoppers to the cabins is mixed. Some women were concerned that they could be left waiting around for their husbands to finish playing a game, while others said that the devices meant they could shop guilt-free.” Think pods like these could work in the United States? Hit us up via Twitter or on our “Contact” page and let us know what you think!
DMM: Data with Experience!
There’s an old saying: “What’s old is new.” DMM has more than 20 years’ worth of archived data, including thousands of listings with hundreds of thousands of tenants, contacts and location information. Past DMM data can be analyzed to forecast future data or trends. Everybody’s talking about “big data” and “data science,” basically applying sophisticated analytic techniques to large datasets. One of the things analysts and economists are doing with DMM data is predictive modeling—using historical data to make predictions about the future. Click here for more detail.
