How Frankel Development uses Retailsphere to Move Deals Forward
When it comes to securing the right tenant for their vacancies, Frankel Development turns to Retailsphere first. Why? When talking to Diandra Breen (image left), Sales Associate at Frankel, she said “Retailsphere helps [us] secure contact information that increases chances of moving a deal forward.” That typically means securing 5-10 targeted and strong candidates for each of their new vacancies.
When Retailsphere doesn’t have the information she is looking for she, “uses Retailsphere’s research team to secure contact information.” Often she’ll be reminded that she submitted a request when she gets an email about a previous research, which then kick-starts her outreach process.
And just like many other Retailsphere users, she loves the News Feed feature in Retailsphere. “It often provides inspiration for new tenant searches. Or it will offer an exact retailer looking to expand in our area, which is even better.”
Her process is simple: get ideas for tenants from the News Feed, translate those into curated searches, and gain insights into retailers from Retailsphere’s detailed retailer profiles. She looks for the right fit and retailers tagged as expanding, which is “all about narrowing [her] outreach process to increase successful connections.”
Frankel Development has been using Retailsphere for over a year now. They have made it an integral part of their initial research and outreach efforts which have led to previously untapped insights because of data they are able to get from the platform. We can’t wait to see what they can accomplish next with Retailsphere!
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Are you looking for a way to increase your outreach accuracy? Or maybe you want to narrow down your outreach quicker. Retailsphere can help you do both. Sign up today for a demo.
Get more done with Retailsphere's Pipeline Tasks
Recent updates to Retailsphere’s task management tools make getting more done in your day even easier. While our Pipeline Management has allowed you to create tasks for a while, we recently made updates that help you stay on top of everything you need to accomplish to close more deals, more quickly.
Easy Reordering
Don’t depend on due date to order tasks any more. Now you can simply drag and drop them into any order you need. This lets you prioritize tasks that are more important, regardless of when they need to be finished.
Due Dates and Recurring Tasks
Quickly add a due date for tasks, right from the task overview screen. Or create a recurring task based on day, week, or monthly frequency.
Access Profile Data
Possibly the most helpful update we’ve made, our Pipeline Management profile information is now easily accessible from the task management screen. Just click on the name of the space, retailer, or contact to access everything you’ve done for that profile. From there you can easily email, create events, or add notes to that profile.
Confirm Completed Tasks
Sometimes, you need to go back and look through previously completed tasks either to ensure something was completed or just to know what to do next. Now, simply select “completed tasks” in the left hand navigation and see an overview of everything previously finished.
Tasks are a critical part of staying on top of constantly evolving deals. With these improvements, Retailsphere users are able to make the most of the information they’re getting from our platform. Are you interested in seeing how Retailsphere can streamline your workflow? Sign up for a no-obligation demo today.
5 Ways to Modernize Your Retail Tenant Search
With retail sales and foot traffic both trending upward, 2022 is on track to be a comeback year for retail real estate. Shopping center owners, investors, and brokers will be well poised to capitalize on the industry’s expansion by embracing modern property management.
This year, retailers will open more stores than they close for the first time since 2017, according to JLL research. If you have vacancies to fill, now is the time to step up your efforts to find the right retailers to fill those spaces.
Here are five strategies to consider when searching for retail tenants.
1. Use Data to Identify New Tenants
Access to robust data will help you identify retailers that will prosper in your space. So, what type of data is useful when searching for prospective tenants?
You’ll want a database that helps you answer questions such as:
What retailers are expanding and where?
What demographic requirements do retailers consider in their search for space?
Which retailers attract the most foot traffic?
What level of sales do specific retailers ring up at individual locations?
What is public sentiment for specific retailers?
What brokers represent the retailers you want to attract?
Luckily, you don’t have to collect this data on your own. By subscribing to a commercial real estate database, you can gain access to decision-maker contact details and other retailer data.
As you evaluate retail database options to support your property management efforts, consider how the data is collected. A robust data collection effort will include a variety of methods, such as web scraping, indexing of government and open-source records, and telephone research.
The leading, modern property management systems also use artificial intelligence to predict future trends.
For example, Retailsphere’s closures prediction algorithm will help you predict which tenants may close and vacate your spaces soon — giving you a head start on your property marketing efforts.
2. Automate Marketing Tasks with Real Estate Technology Tools
Connecting with prospective tenants for your retail properties can be a laborious process. You can save time by automating more of your marketing processes with a customer relationship management (CRM) system built for the commercial real estate industry.
A CRM system helps shopping center owners and brokers to communicate efficiently with prospects through all stages of the sales journey. You can log your outreach to prospective tenants and take notes on your conversations, helping you remember details and keep your whole team on the same page.
Then, you can set up tasks to track action items with each contact. That might include scheduling your next email or setting up an onsite meeting at your retail space.
Look for a system that includes customizable templates that make it easy to engage with prospects via email and text. You will also want the ability to personalize communications even when sending to a large group of prospects.
Other useful features include the ability to create and send calendar invites from within the platform, as well as to create custom reports. These reports will show all the effort your team is taking to get the right retailer into your space.
3. Build Relationships with Retailers
Commercial real estate owners and brokers are increasingly turning to texting and social media messaging to nurture leads. Scrolling through target retailers’ Instagram and Facebook profiles will help you learn about their brands and customer bases.
Engaging with prospective tenants through social media and text is also a great way to meet them where they are. Nearly three-quarters of Americans are active on at least one social network, according to Pew Research.
By tracking social networks and mobile numbers within your CRM system, you’ll know what channels drive the best response from retailers. From there, you can send custom texts, Facebook messages, LinkedIn InMail and Instagram DMs to the right people at the brands you want to attract.
4. Reimagine Your Shopping Center’s Identity
Once you’ve evaluated the data to identify the retailers you’d like to see in your shopping center, you’ll want to look at your space with a critical eye. Is it designed to attract the target customers of those retailers?
The identity of your shopping center matters. That includes everything from the branding and physical design to the amenities you provide.
For example, if you want to fill your center with hip restaurants and trendy shops, you’ll have more success if you cultivate an insta-worthy experience for the social media generation. Consider working with a local artist to create a unique mural, as well as landscaping improvements.
Additionally, consider how the retail environment has changed in just the past two years. As they evaluate space options, more retailers are looking for convenient parking spaces that can be reserved for curbside pickup. Ensuring your center is equipped to meet the needs of today’s consumers will put you ahead in the race for new tenants.
5. Consider Untraditional Tenants
Even as retailers rebound from the economic downturn, it’s clear that the pandemic has accelerated the growth of e-commerce. McKinsey’s research finds more than half of consumers expect to maintain their online shopping habits after the pandemic ends.
While not a death knell for brick-and-mortar retail, the explosive growth of e-commerce is spurring retail landlords to rethink the ideal tenant mix for a modern property.
You may want to explore targeting the following types of untraditional tenants:
Medical: Healthcare companies make reliable tenants and bring a steady flow of traffic to a shopping center. Many medical and dental offices began expanding into retail spaces pre-pandemic as they sought to get closer to their patients — a trend that many experts expect to continue.
Coworking: Many coworking providers find that retail properties meet their needs just as well as traditional offices. A storefront can offer a fun, creative space for flexible work, along with easy access to local services and amenities.
E-commerce: You may also consider businesses that benefit from online shopping trends, such as e-commerce fulfillment centers where consumers can pick up goods they ordered online.
Ghost kitchens: Many restauranteurs are capitalizing on growing consumer demand for online food order and delivery. They’re opening ghost kitchens — facilities that only prepare food for delivery and/or takeout. Ghost kitchens are expected to grow from a $43.1 billion industry in 2019 to $71.4 billion by 2027, according to Hospitality Technology.
Get Ahead in Your Search with Retailsphere
Embracing modern property management will position you to attract the tenants that will keep your shopping center thriving for years to come. Sign up for a demo to discover how Retailsphere can help you get ahead in your search.
Proptech Trends for Retail Real Estate in 2023
The future of the retail industry revolves around technology, and that doesn’t just mean a shift to e-commerce. Proptech real estate companies are transforming the brick-and-mortar shopping experience and how landlords run their shopping centers.
Investors are pouring funds into new retail formats, in-store technology, supply chain solutions, and much more. Combined, retail tech funding hit $109 billion globally in 2021, more than double 2020’s investment total, according to CB Insights.
Read on to discover how proptech companies will impact the retail real estate industry in the year ahead.
Identifying New Tenants with Sophisticated Data Services
A real estate investor has an abundance of data available today to help identify the right tenants for an investment property. After all, not all retailers are the right fit for a specific property. You want to bring in brands with strong growth prospects that complement other retailers in your shopping center.
That’s where data comes in. With a sophisticated data service, a property manager can see detailed information on prospective tenants such as:
Site Selection Criteria: Understand what characteristics retailers seek in a space, such as demographics, traffic count, median income, or parking requirements.
Mobility: View actual foot traffic to identify which retailers draw a crowd.
Point of sale: Target popular brands by seeing how much retailers make at individual locations across the country.
Social Media: Go deep into a retailer’s brand and customer base by reviewing how it interacts with customers in social media channels.
Reviews: Understand how public sentiment toward the brand is trending.
Transforming the In-Store Experience with Tracking Technology
Data has many more uses than identifying prospective tenants. Just as workplace designers use utilization and occupancy data to determine the optimal office space design, you can use new layers of data to improve the shopping experience.
Retailers and property owners are using smartphone and foot traffic data to inform marketing tactics and reimagine store design. Using data gleaned from smartphones, you can even make the physical space more interactive and deliver targeted offers and assistance directly to individual customers.
In-store technology also delivers property management benefits. Property managers can determine the busiest shopping times with crowd-tracking cameras. Armed with that information, you can ensure proper staffing levels during peak hours — or brainstorm new ways to draw in customers during slow periods.
Data also has the power to integrate the online and in-person experience. Brands can use location data to identify which customers visited their stores and then target them with digital campaigns.
Streamlining Retail Property Management with Automation
Proptech real estate tools are injecting new efficiency into the job of a property manager. With tools that automate lease administration, rent collection, contracts, and other daily tasks, you can improve productivity and better service your retail tenants.
The pandemic accelerated the digitization of the commercial real estate industry — retail included. With in-person interactions restricted, many real estate investors, brokers, and tenants became much more comfortable exchanging documents online, conducting virtual tours, and moving money electronically.
Software companies responded to this trend with new solutions that are here to stay. For example, you can automate your marketing efforts with a customer relationship management (CRM) system. With the right CRM, you can send personalized texts, emails, and social media messages to prospective tenants—and track the responses.
By streamlining administrative tasks, you’ll free up time to focus on strategies that improve the profitability and attractiveness of your retail property.
Enhancing Building Sanitization with Modern Technology
COVID-19 brought a heightened emphasis on the cleanliness of public spaces. Consumers ranked frequent cleaning and sanitizing as the top measure that would make them more comfortable with visiting physical spaces, according to a survey conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers.
With the pandemic fresh on consumers’ minds, the focus on cleanliness is unlikely to abate soon. Modern cleaning technology solutions can play a key role in both improving the efficiency of cleaning processes and making consumers feel comfortable.
For example, touchless entry, elevators, and payments ease customer comfort and reduce the number of surfaces that require frequent sanitation. Cleaning robots can supplement your janitorial team by spotting and cleaning up spills.
Meanwhile, air quality sensors can detect viruses and pollutants in the air. This data gives property managers insight into areas that may need improved filtration or ventilation.
Boosting Sustainability with Smart Building Technology and IoT
In recent years, proptech companies have introduced many new technologies aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the built environment.
These innovations will be increasingly critical for attracting retail tenants with ambitious sustainability goals. For retailers, the physical store is a powerful manifestation of its commitment to reducing its carbon footprint.
To attract sustainability-minded retailers, property managers must step up their efforts to make shopping centers more energy efficient. That’s why many retail property owners are now transitioning to smarter building management solutions enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT).
IoT-based smart building solutions typically enable energy efficiency improvements in power; lighting; and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Sensors and other monitoring technology provide granular, real-time data on building performance.
Property managers can use this data to do more than improve efficiency at the building level. They can also benchmark properties within a portfolio and identify opportunities for improvement.
You can implement a smart building system as a stand-alone project or as part of a comprehensive sustainability plan. For example, many retail property owners are adding electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, exploring sustainable landscaping, and implementing green cleaning programs.
Start Your Journey with Retailsphere
Staying ahead of the latest technology trends will be critical for shopping center owners in the digital age. Are you considering new proptech real estate solutions in 2022?
Schedule a demo to learn how Retailsphere can help you better leverage data and enhance deal management.
How to Level Up Your Retail Real Estate Marketing Campaign: A Retailsphere Guide
Are you striving to fill vacant space in your shopping center? If so, it may be time to reboot your marketing strategy. Digital and email marketing for commercial real estate can help you reach the right prospects in your quest to fill your space. By leveraging technology, you can eliminate duplication of effort, streamline and accurately focus your marketing. The result? Greatly increased speed of deal flow and leasing cycle and more leads.
Follow these 4 steps to take your retail real estate marketing to the next level.
1. Refine Your Tenant Prospect List
When marketing your property, it can be tempting to cast a wide net, targeting as many retailers as possible. Yet this strategy often backfires, with the majority of prospects overlooking your communications. Worse, yet, you might be inadvertently marketing to tenants that you may be prohibited from leasing to – a terrible waste of time for both sides.
Real estate brokers, owners, and developers tend to have more success when they start with a hyper-targeted contact list. By spending more time on research up front, you can trim your list to a handful of retailers whose requirements match the space you’re trying to lease.
Narrowing your target list allows you to take a more tailored, personal approach. You can focus your time on educating prospects on how your space uniquely fills their needs.
Where should you start with your research? You’ll need access to comprehensive retailer data, such as their average sales per square foot, as well as what they look for in a space. Their site selection criteria will include demographics, traffic count, square footage, minimum frontage, parking requirements, and much more.
Additionally, you’ll need contact information for the site selectors at each retailer so you can reach the right decision-makers with your marketing efforts.
2. Create a Robust Digital Footprint for Your Retail Property
The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital tools for commercial real estate. While in-person property tours have picked up again, tenants and brokers have become accustomed to vetting properties first with virtual walkthroughs and videos, and efficient and effective use of new technology.
Providing a rich digital experience is the first step in capturing your prospects’ interest. Drone footage and virtual tours can help build out your property’s digital presence and powerfully showcase its strengths.
Drones offer the ability to capture high-resolution aerial photos and videos of your retail real estate. The bird's-eye perspective of a drone shows a comprehensive picture of the entire property that cannot be achieved with traditional video.
This gives prospective tenants visual information as to vehicular traffic at the entrance, parking lot usage, and many other visceral cues individual to each site selector, including things like the condition of the roof.
Great drone videos also showcase the overall market as well as other tenants/traffic generators proximate to the site providing a “feel” of the prospective site and its place in the market. Not commonplace as little as five years ago, drone videos are now considered an essential marketing tool for most properties.
Virtual property tours, meanwhile, are best for showcasing individual spaces and amenities. A virtual tour is an easy way to allow your prospects to “walk” the property and truly experience it without a site visit. This is especially important for making it onto the shortlist of out-of-town prospects.
With the right equipment, you can capture drone photography and produce virtual tours on your own. Alternatively, you can cost-effectively outsource the production to a third-party vendor, who can provide valuable “post-production” work such as labeling streets, traffic counts, and many other points of information.
3. Sharpen Your Email Marketing Strategy
Email remains a highly effective tool for connecting with prospective tenants. So how do you make your email stand out in a crowded inbox?
The first step is personalization—and that involves more than plugging the recipient’s name into your greeting. When you have a highly targeted list of prospects, you can customize your message to their unique needs.
For example, if your property is ideally situated for a drive-through window, you would highlight that in messages to a quick-service restaurant that is expanding online order and pickup.
Once you’ve personalized your message, several other factors can make the difference between an email that gets sent to the trash and one that gets a reply.
Consider the following factors as you hone your email marketing strategy:
Attention-grabbing subject line: Clear, concise, and specific subject lines will garner attention so recipients are more likely to open your email.
When marketing a commercial real estate property, you may want to highlight a few of the property’s key features in your subject line, such as the square footage, location, or a unique trait. Just don’t try to squeeze in every feature—research shows seven-word subject lines get the highest engagement.
Intriguing content: Your goal is not to get a signed lease immediately after your first email to a prospect—although that would be ideal! A more realistic goal is to pique their curiosity so they want to learn more about what your property has to offer, but always include a leasing plan and a labeled aerial photo so the prospect can easily vet the basics.
With that in mind, focus your email content on the top benefits your property offers to a specific prospect. Keep it short and focused, and link to your property’s landing page. That will entice readers to click and learn more.
The right timing: The best time to send business emails tends to be midweek, according to studies that analyze open and click rates. However, results vary among different audiences.
You’ll want to analyze your marketing emails over time to determine what days and times have the highest engagement. Most importantly, when sending emails with a strong “contact us” message, you’ll want to ensure the email goes out at a time when you will be in the office, ready to pick up the phone and respond to inquiries.
4. Track Your Marketing Activity and Customize Follow Up
Once you’ve captured the attention of a prospect, you don’t want to blunder the opportunity by forgetting to follow up. Ideally, you’ll want your email platform to be integrated with a pipeline management tool that allows you to manage activity with each prospect.
One of the many benefits of email marketing is that it provides clear metrics on the results of each email you send. Your CRM system will show you who opened your emails and who clicked links within the message. This will enable you to customize a follow-up message depending on their level of engagement.
For example, if a prospect has not opened your prior email, you may want to revamp your subject line or try sending the message at a different time. Conversely, if someone has been opening and clicking the links in your emails, you may want to follow up with an invitation to your property in person.
Leveraging email templates in your CRM system can help you automate this follow-up activity—so you can spend your time nurturing your most promising leads.
Take Your Commercial Real Estate Marketing to the Next Level
In an age when everyone is bombarded with countless marketing messages every day, a thoughtful, personalized approach can help you stand out from the crowd.
Discover how Retailsphere can help you take your commercial real estate marketing to the next level. Book a demo today.
How Is Big Data Impacting Retail Real Estate
As the retail industry paves new paths to growth, data-fueled business intelligence can help tenants and shopping center owners alike make smarter decisions. To unlock the insights you need, it’s helpful to understand the value of big data for real estate brokers, tenants, landlords, and investors.
Creative glowing big data texture with financial charts. Technology and future concept. 3D Rendering
What is big data, and how can you use it to gain a competitive advantage? Read on to discover answers to top questions about the uses of big data in retail real estate.
What Is Big Data?
Real estate brokers, landlords, tenants, buyers, and sellers have always relied on data to make decisions. However, analyzing a handful of data points—such as square footage, vacancy rates, sales per square foot, and traffic scores—is not the same as leveraging big data.
More than a buzzword, big data is a term that describes a large volume of data from a variety of sources. The interpretation of a wide range of data variables is a valuable tool for real estate professionals and can lead to not only more deals but also better deals done faster.
The information age has made it possible for you to access infinite data about almost any topic. And now, innovators are finding new ways to collect and analyze that infinite data to create business intelligence. Retail real estate is no exception.
In addition to traditional data used in real estate transactions, such as demographics and comps, a variety of other variables can help you predict the future and make stronger decisions. Non-traditional data might include customer reviews, social media updates, and even shopper movements within buildings.
Whether you’re a property owner or a broker, big data can create impactful insights. The trick is learning how to harness it. That’s where analytics tools come into play.
What Tools Can Help Real Estate Brokers Make Sense of Big Data?
Conventional methods of analyzing data—like complex Excel spreadsheets—don’t work with big data. Analysts simply can’t bring together and sift through tens of millions of data points quickly enough to deliver real-time, actionable insights.
That’s where technology solutions come in. Machine learning algorithms make it significantly easier to aggregate and interpret disparate sources of data.
However, collecting the data and building accurate algorithms takes time and skilled talent. That’s why many CRE brokers and landlords subscribe to database solutions to aggregate the data they need.
If you are considering such a solution, it’s important to ensure the company has a robust process for ensuring data accuracy and timeliness. Quality databases pull information from multiple sources, provide transparency on the origination of each data point and go the extra mile to ensure accuracy and timeliness.
How Can Big Data Empower Retail Real Estate Dealmakers?
When seeking new tenants, retail property landlords and investors want more than a retailer that can pay the rent check next month. They want to attract brands with strong long-term growth prospects. New tenants should complement their existing tenant mix and boost the overall image of the shopping center or mall.
How do you identify the retailers that meet that definition of good tenants? Enter, big data and predictive analytics.
By analyzing comprehensive data sets, you can narrow down your prospect list to a few retailers that would be a perfect match for your space. You’ll want access to a database of retailers’ site selection criteria so you know what they look for in their space. This involves frontage and size requirements, parking ratios, traffic counts, demographics, and co-tenancy with other businesses. Then, you can compare that with your space to determine if there’s a match.
Meanwhile, mobility and point of sale data can tell powerful stories about the foot traffic and sales a retailer sees at their other locations. That information, combined with social media conversations and customer reviews, will give you a better understanding of the brand’s strength and the impact it can have on the overall sales per square foot of the property
Big data can also help you predict when you might have tenants vacating soon. For example, Retailsphere’s closures prediction algorithm scores tenants on their likelihood to close, based on a combination of variables. Equipped with this knowledge, you’ll be better prepared to fill their space if they do need to close the location.
How Are Retail Tenants Using Big Data to Find Space?
Just as you can use big data to find tenants, retailers are using big data to identify the places where they need to have a presence. In fact, retailers allocate millions of dollars to location intelligence to better understand who visits their stores, for how long, and where else they shop – before and after the store visit.
Mobile devices allow retailers to access a treasure trove of information on consumers’ habits and traffic patterns by “geo-fencing” a property or even an individual store. That data—combined with other information such as demographics, drive times, and proximity to competitors—helps inform site selection decisions with a high degree of precision due to the granular level of trade area information.
Additionally, location analytics gives retailers insights into how their competitors are doing and helps them establish benchmarks for individual stores. Location-based insights can also be used to improve merchandising. That might include offering a better selection of products based on local demographics or changing a store layout.
What Are Other Uses for Big Data in Retail Real Estate?
Big data has many other uses beyond tenant prospecting and site selection. The use cases continue to expand as more information is collected every day through sensors and other devices connected with Internet of Things (IoT) technology.
For example, complex data sets and predictive analytics can play a powerful role in forecasting property valuations and lease rates.
Research by McKinsey found that analyzing non-traditional data, such as proximity to a 4-store hotel or the number of cafes within a mile, can more accurately predict areas with strong potential for price appreciation than traditional data alone.
Big data can also help property managers improve efficiencies and make capital expenditure decisions. Smart building systems generate a constant stream of data about equipment performance, energy consumption, and more.
Harnessing this data can help you reduce your carbon footprint and avoid capital expenditures by fixing equipment before it breaks down.
Leverage the Power of Big Data
Real estate agents, brokers, and owners have traditionally relied on a combination of intuition and historical data to make decisions. Thanks to big data, you now have the ability to layer on predictive analytics to fuel even greater business intelligence.
Schedule a demo to discover how Retailsphere can help you tap into the power of big data.
6 Emerging Retail Store Concepts in 2023
As pandemic safety concerns ease up, consumers are looking forward to browsing the aisles at their favorite shops again. At the same time, their habits and needs have fundamentally changed. New retail store concepts will be key to drawing consumers back to brick-and-mortar.
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are once again comfortable going to shopping malls, according to a recent survey from Morning Consult. Yet the same survey found that 47% of consumers are spending more online than they were pre-pandemic, underscoring the importance of creating unique store experiences.
Retail real estate owners can future-proof their centers and malls by diversifying their tenant mix with innovative retail, dining, and entertainment concepts. Following are six examples of new formats to consider.
#1: New Formats for Established Brands
Forward-looking brands continually innovate the in-store experience, keeping pace with evolving consumer preferences and trends.
For example, Nordstrom launched a redefined Home concept at its New York City flagship in the fall of 2021. The two-story Nordstrom Home NYC shop offers a curated selection of merchandise for city living.
Nordstrom isn’t the only department store exploring new formats. Bloomingdale’s recently opened its first smaller concept store, Bloomie’s, in Fairfax, Virginia.
The 22,000 square-foot store features a highly edited selection of apparel, shoes, accessories, and skincare and beauty products, along with a restaurant. Similarly, Macy’s is testing smaller stores in open-air malls with its Market by Macy’s locations.
On the other side of the spectrum, Dollar General, meanwhile, is expanding its higher-end PopShelf stores. The chain plans to open 1,000 locations over the next four years. And Petco recently unveiled a new format for rural locations, featuring products for both pets and livestock.
Row of glasses at an opticians. Eyeglasses shop. Stand with glasses in the store of optics. Woman chooses spectacles. Eyesight correction.
#2: Brick-and-Mortar Spaces for E-Commerce Businesses
Many e-commerce businesses are finding that physical stores hold the key to faster brand growth. Omni-Channel is here to stay for many formerly digitally-native brands.
Allbirds, the eco-friendly shoe brand that began its life online, opened 13 new stores in 2021, helping its physical store sales skyrocket by 112%. In fact, in-store sales were the biggest driver of growth in Q4 2021.
The online eyeglass shop Warby Parker is on a similar expansion spree. The brand plans to open 40 new stores this year, which would bring its total to 201 locations.
Wayfair is also investing in the omnichannel experience. The furniture giant began opening pop-up shops in 2018 and later tested a small format retail store. Now, it will launch the first brick-and-mortar experiences for its AllModern and Joss & Main brands in 2022, followed by larger store formats under the Wayfair and Perigold brands.
Schedule a free demo with Retailsphere and search our database to find potential tenants for your vacancies, analyze expanding retailers, and connect with exciting new concepts.
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#3: Next-Level Experiences
Retailers know they need to offer unique experiences to draw consumers out of their homes and into stores.
The trend toward experiential retail-led Dick’s Sporting Goods to launch new concepts where customers can test out products. At Dick’s House of Sport, shoppers can scale a rock-climbing wall, use a batting cage and putting green, and even head to an outdoor field to try out equipment.
The company’s new Public Lands store also features a rock wall, in addition to specialized shops dedicated to various outdoor activities.
In the home furnishings category, IKEA is testing its Home Experience of Tomorrow in Shanghai. The new concept includes a theatre-like communal space where shoppers can socialize or relax. It also boasts a restaurant showcasing sustainable food practices, and a Maker’s Hub where the staff helps customers build or repair items.
Young asian woman walking in clothes store at the mall, Woman lifestyle concept
#4: Store-Within-a-Store
A host of retailers are exploring the benefits of co-branding. They’re teaming up with complementary brands via licensing agreements to create store-within-a-store concepts.
Examples abound. Beauty brands Ulta and Sephora are opening small shops within Target and Kohl’s, respectively. Target also announced in the fall of 2021 that it was tripling the number of “Disney Store at Target” locations within its stores.
The direct-to-consumer mattress brand, Casper, made its foray into physical retail with a branded shop-in-shop at select Bed Bath & Beyond locations. Meanwhile, Toys R Us is making a comeback with new toy shops inside more than 400 Macy’s stores.
Woman customer paying bills with credit card at Starbuck Cafe drive through
#5: Next Generation Drive-Thru
It’s not only store interiors that are getting facelifts. Shopping center exteriors are also seeing changes as quick service and fast-casual restaurants reimagine the drive-thru experience.
The pandemic accelerated customer adoption of mobile and online ordering for carryout orders.
More than half (54%) of adults today say purchasing takeout or delivery food is essential to the way they live, according to the National Restaurant Association. In response, food companies are striving to make the carryout experience more seamless than ever.
When Taco Bell Defy opens in the summer of 2022, customers will be able to zip through one of four delivery lanes to pick up mobile orders. Food is delivered to each customer through a lift system from the elevated kitchen, which sits above the drive-thru lanes. The test concept in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, may help shape the company's future designs, due to its efficiency in land use.
Burger King also announced futuristic designs during the pandemic. Locations now offer more options for customers to conveniently get their orders with a drive-thru, drive-in, and curbside pickup. Similarly, Panera Bread is enhancing the pickup experience with dual drive-thrus plus a dedicated “Rapid Pick-Up” lane.
Restaurants are complementing their new designs with digital enhancements like interactive technology that ease the order and pickup experience, all to reduce, if not eliminate “friction” in food ordering and deliver.
Detail of the arm of a man scanning a code on the mobile phone to pick up a package from the yellow locker. Messaging concept, compare online, e-commerce and packages
#6: Phygital Shops
Ninety-six percent of customers today demand a seamless experience across channels, according to Deloitte. Luckily, they are increasingly likely to find that seamless, frictionless experience as more retailers blend the physical and digital experiences with new “phygital” retail concepts.
Amazon is on the front lines of this trend with their Just Walk Out technology in Amazon Go stores. Customers simply grab the items they want and walk out. There’s no stopping at a check-out counter; purchases are automatically billed to the customer’s Amazon account. The e-commerce giant is expanding the adoption of this technology at Whole Foods stores and through a partnership with Starbucks.
Phygital experiences go beyond payment technology. For example, luxury brands such as Chanel and Gucci are enhancing their stores with augmented reality mirrors and interactive digital displays. And at the Adidas flagship store in Dubai, shoppers can find RFID smart fitting rooms and premium services like MakerLab, which allows customers to personalize products.
Conclusion
Could any of these new retail concepts be the key to increasing foot traffic in your shopping center or mall?
Book a demo to discover how Retailsphere can help you find expanding retailers to fill your space.
Top Tips: How to Overcome Leasing Pipeline Bottlenecks
When you have an empty storefront to fill, every day of vacancy costs you money. It also hurts your other tenants who would benefit from steady customer traffic to neighboring retailers. Removing bottlenecks from your leasing pipeline can help you fill the space more quickly and maintain your center’s profitability, and in retail leasing, “Speed is Life”.
Common bottlenecks include inefficient communication, complex processes, and information gaps. Luckily, there are solutions that allow you to address these pain points head-on and speed up your deal process.
Ditch Spreadsheets for a Shared Database
If you’re a broker or landlord striving to lease a retail property, you likely have several active prospects at any given moment—and many more if you are working to fill several spaces across a portfolio of properties at the same time. How do you keep track of all the interactions you and the rest of your team have with each valuable individual prospect?
Spreadsheet Document Information Financial Startup Concept
Many commercial real estate teams rely on spreadsheets to track information about the leasing pipeline. However, this approach frequently leaves teams viewing outdated information, since spreadsheets must be updated manually and often have version control issues. And, you may find yourself constantly searching your inbox or shared drive to find the latest version, or worse, you might spend time updating the wrong sheet and have to start over.
You’ll gain efficiencies and improve communication by using a pipeline management system—a tool used by leading commercial real estate teams to manage deals. It can serve as your single source of the truth, showing you where every deal is in the pipeline, at any moment of the day. That way you don’t have to wait until a cumbersome spreadsheet is circulated to get an update, since it is all updated in real-time.
When integrated with your contact database, a pipeline management tool allows you to capture more details about each prospect. You can see the retailer’s space requirements, contact information, and your communications log, including any shared drawings or docs—all in one place.
Additionally, shared systems keep everyone on the same page, in real-time. For asset managers or leasing department leaders, this can be especially useful if you have a multi-site portfolio with several individuals leasing space at multiple shopping centers.
For example, your asset manager in one city can see that a counterpart in another location recently showed space to an expanding home furnishings retailer. They can then share information about the prospect and help boost each other’s leasing goals, as well as create the desirable attraction of a multiple location deal for the retailer.
Conduct Pipeline Reviews to Identify Obstacles and Opportunities
Conducting regular pipeline reviews can help you identify possible obstacles to leasing your space, and also reveal your most promising prospects. This is another area where the right technology tools can be helpful.
With a pipeline management system, you can run data-driven reports that will uncover trends and potential issues in your pipeline, early in the process. Running those reports requires minimal input—you can automate the process of creating custom reports. That frees up your time to focus on analyzing the findings to create actionable insights, making your leasing meeting less focused on fact-finding and more focused on breaking down obstacles.
Your pipeline review may uncover some obstacles that are standing in the way of a signed lease. After all, no matter how modern and well-located your retail center is, it simply won’t meet the requirements of every retailer.
While some prospects will inevitably pass on the space, it is best to vet those tenants out early since those interactions provide a learning opportunity and can free your focus toward deals more likely to close. By getting to the root of the problem early in your pipeline review process, you’ll make the first step toward resolving any issues, as well as increase your ability to close more makeable deals.
With a curated, highly focussed list of tenant prospects, you can also zero in on the most qualified leads by reviewing your pipeline reports at the earliest point of contact. Then, you can focus your energy and time on the prospects that are most likely to be a good match for your space and the tenant’s expansion plans.
Eliminate Information Gaps
You undoubtedly have retailers in mind who would be the perfect tenants for your shopping center. However, tracking down the contact details for their real estate team may be tricky.
Don’t let information gaps stand in the way between you and your ideal tenant. You can overcome this hurdle by subscribing to a research service that provides contact information for national retailers, franchisees, and mom-and-pop shops.
Colleagues workshopping business ideas in modern co working space
A research platform specialized in retail real estate will allow you to see what retailers are expanding, view their site requirements, and find contact details, eliminating the time-wasting associated with searching for a tenant contact, only to find that your property is in a market where the tenant has no desire to expand.
For example, Retailsphere’s service includes a concierge research team that will track down contacts for you if they’re not already in our database. You’ll receive a report that provides information on specific retailers’ expansion plans, co-tenant needs, site requirements, and verified contact information. The information will be added to your deal pipeline, making it easy for you to start outreach and begin leveraging your dealmaking skills.
Leverage Automation to Ensure Activities Don’t Fall Through the Cracks
The path to a signed lease involves many steps, and one missed email can stall the whole process. An integrated pipeline management solution can serve as your virtual personal assistant to ensure your follow-up activities stay on track.
For example, an automated system can help you stay on top of all action items with your prospects, such as the following:
Notify you when you are due to make a call to a potential tenant
Tell you when a prospect has not replied to your latest communications
Remind you of important site meetings
Check whether other members of your team are following through on their assigned tasks
These seemingly simple tasks are crucial to staying on top of evolving deals. The right technology platform can streamline your activity so you can focus on your relationships.
Simplify Your Pipeline Management
Don’t let common bottlenecks clog up your leasing pipeline.
Schedule a demo to discover how Retailsphere can help you streamline your pipeline management to find the perfect tenant for your retail space.
5 Ways to Modernize Your Retail Tenant Search
With retail sales and foot traffic both trending upward, 2023 is on track to be a comeback year for retail real estate. Shopping center owners, investors, and brokers will be well poised to capitalize on the industry’s expansion by embracing modern property management.
This year, retailers will open more stores than they close for the first time since 2017, according to JLL research. If you have vacancies to fill, now is the time to step up your efforts to find the right retailers to fill those spaces.
Here are five strategies to consider when searching for retail tenants.
1. Use Data to Identify New Tenants
Access to robust data will help you identify retailers that will prosper in your space. So, what type of data is useful when searching for prospective tenants?
You’ll want a database that helps you answer questions such as:
What retailers are expanding and where?
What demographic requirements do retailers consider in their search for space?
Which retailers attract the most foot traffic?
What level of sales do specific retailers ring up at individual locations?
What is public sentiment for specific retailers?
What brokers represent the retailers you want to attract?
Luckily, you don’t have to collect this data on your own. By subscribing to a commercial real estate database, you can gain access to decision-maker contact details and other retailer data.
As you evaluate retail database options to support your property management efforts, consider how the data is collected. A robust data collection effort will include a variety of methods, such as web scraping, indexing of government and open-source records, and telephone research.
The leading, modern property management systems also use artificial intelligence to predict future trends.
For example, Retailsphere’s closures prediction algorithm will help you predict which tenants may close and vacate your spaces soon — giving you a head start on your property marketing efforts.
2. Automate Marketing Tasks with Real Estate Technology Tools
Connecting with prospective tenants for your retail properties can be a laborious process. You can save time by automating more of your marketing processes with a customer relationship management (CRM) system built for the commercial real estate industry.
A CRM system helps shopping center owners and brokers to communicate efficiently with prospects through all stages of the sales journey. You can log your outreach to prospective tenants and take notes on your conversations, helping you remember details and keep your whole team on the same page.
Then, you can set up tasks to track action items with each contact. That might include scheduling your next email or setting up an onsite meeting at your retail space.
Look for a system that includes customizable templates that make it easy to engage with prospects via email and text. You will also want the ability to personalize communications even when sending to a large group of prospects.
Other useful features include the ability to create and send calendar invites from within the platform, as well as to create custom reports. These reports will show all the effort your team is taking to get the right retailer into your space.
3. Build Relationships with Retailers
Commercial real estate owners and brokers are increasingly turning to texting and social media messaging to nurture leads. Scrolling through target retailers’ Instagram and Facebook profiles will help you learn about their brands and customer bases.
Engaging with prospective tenants through social media and text is also a great way to meet them where they are. Nearly three-quarters of Americans are active on at least one social network, according to Pew Research.
By tracking social networks and mobile numbers within your CRM system, you’ll know what channels drive the best response from retailers. From there, you can send custom texts, Facebook messages, LinkedIn InMail and Instagram DMs to the right people at the brands you want to attract.
4. Reimagine Your Shopping Center’s Identity
Once you’ve evaluated the data to identify the retailers you’d like to see in your shopping center, you’ll want to look at your space with a critical eye. Is it designed to attract the target customers of those retailers?
The identity of your shopping center matters. That includes everything from the branding and physical design to the amenities you provide.
For example, if you want to fill your center with hip restaurants and trendy shops, you’ll have more success if you cultivate an insta-worthy experience for the social media generation. Consider working with a local artist to create a unique mural, as well as landscaping improvements.
Additionally, consider how the retail environment has changed in just the past two years. As they evaluate space options, more retailers are looking for convenient parking spaces that can be reserved for curbside pickup. Ensuring your center is equipped to meet the needs of today’s consumers will put you ahead in the race for new tenants.
5. Consider Untraditional Tenants
Even as retailers rebound from the economic downturn, it’s clear that the pandemic has accelerated the growth of e-commerce. McKinsey’s research finds more than half of consumers expect to maintain their online shopping habits after the pandemic ends.
While not a death knell for brick-and-mortar retail, the explosive growth of e-commerce is spurring retail landlords to rethink the ideal tenant mix for a modern property.
You may want to explore targeting the following types of untraditional tenants:
Medical: Healthcare companies make reliable tenants and bring a steady flow of traffic to a shopping center. Many medical and dental offices began expanding into retail spaces pre-pandemic as they sought to get closer to their patients — a trend that many experts expect to continue.
Coworking: Many coworking providers find that retail properties meet their needs just as well as traditional offices. A storefront can offer a fun, creative space for flexible work, along with easy access to local services and amenities.
E-commerce: You may also consider businesses that benefit from online shopping trends, such as e-commerce fulfillment centers where consumers can pick up goods they ordered online.
Ghost kitchens: Many restauranteurs are capitalizing on growing consumer demand for online food order and delivery. They’re opening ghost kitchens — facilities that only prepare food for delivery and/or takeout. Ghost kitchens are expected to grow from a $43.1 billion industry in 2019 to $71.4 billion by 2027, according to Hospitality Technology.
Get Ahead in Your Search with Retailsphere
Embracing modern property management will position you to attract the tenants that will keep your shopping center thriving for years to come. Sign up for a demo to discover how Retailsphere can help you get ahead in your search.
Peterson Company's Mark Kufka is amazed at the RetailSphere platform's evolution in such a short amount of time
"I cannot compliment you enough on how far the product has come since Kenny Brown first introduced – then eventually sold us – on the RetailSphere tool. Your team has truly put in some great work to expand the product and make it that much more valuable. It was a good tool when we originally licensed it back in 2020, but it is amazing how much further it has evolved." -Mark A. Kufka, Assistant Vice President, Market Research and Leasing Technology, Peterson Companies
Our goal at Retailsphere has always been to do everything we possibly can to help our clients succeed. The ultimate goal of the RetailSphere™ platform is to empower our clients to close more deals quickly. In general, we strive to see our clients close more than ten times what they pay in subscription fees on the platform. It’s quite simple. If our clients succeed, they will be excited and word will spread. And, of course, word of mouth is the best way to grow a business.
So how do we do that? Well, to Mark’s point, it has required building functionality that most of our clients weren’t using. We’ve been working on it for a while and will continue to improve on the product, but it’s much closer to being completed today than in 2020.
And what is the final goal of Retailsphere™ platform? Right now it can be described in three main parts:
1. A tool that makes reaching out to prospective clients/partners as easy as possible.
2. A tool that quickly allows you to find thousands of potential clients and partners.
3. A tool that allows you to easily track your activities, automate the scheduling of tasks and appointments, and quickly report on your activities.
These are 1. Our marketing automation suite, 2. The world’s largest contact database of retail CRE decision-makers and 3. A super painless, included (read FREE) Pipeline CRM™ tool.
So let’s quickly review each of these three parts. It starts with having the best marketing platform in the industry. Not only can you simply send bulk emails, and view when recipients are opening, clicking, and replying to your emails, but you can set up (w/ only a few mouse clicks) ongoing email cadences. These multi-step “fire & forget” marketing campaigns are incredibly powerful in building new relationships. But it’s a lot more than just providing the platform that allows for this. There is a great deal of training that goes into creating powerful multi-step cadences. There is an art and a science to it. And our team is there to help our clients quickly scale the learning curve of this powerful technology.
The second part is the database. You need to quickly be able to find dozens, hundreds, or even thousands, of potential clients or partners. RetailSphere™ is the largest contact database in the industry. By a huge margin. Not just contacts for massive national brands (which we have) but tens of thousands of others as well. Landlords, franchisees, locally famous concepts, architects, lawyers, and other service providers. These contacts can be quickly assembled into shareable collections that can be dropped into pre-build campaigns.
Finally, we have our Pipeline CRM™. Easy and intuitive software that makes taking notes, remembering follow-ups, tracking deals, and reporting to your clients and senior team members effortless.
This Three-legged stool approach to retail commercial real estate deal-making is incredibly powerful. That’s why clients are so excited about the RetailSphere™ platform. Users really do expand their networks, close more deals and empower their careers!
Contact us today for a free online product demonstration so we can show you all of these powerful features!
