 With Black Friday behind us, the holiday shopping season is in full-swing. Deals are being made and I have my ear to the ground to keep abreast of retail shopping trends. What’s the biggest winner of the biggest weekend in shopping? BOPIS. Buy Online, Pickup in Store. To paraphrase a Retail Dive article below, curbs are a big winner. “Curbside pickup surged 52% over last year, according to Adobe.” It just goes to show how important brick and mortar locations continue to be. I’ve compiled a list of interesting articles and a quick synopsis for each, which reflect the shopping weekend, below. Winners and Losers of Black Friday 2020
Retailers Jump on ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Trend as Holidays Approach
Black Friday 2020 Live Update: Bargain hunters drove record online sales, hot gifts in short supply
…
For over 33 years, The Greenberg Group has led the expansion of global and iconic brands like Lacoste, Gucci, Puma, Travis Mathew, Drybar, Crocs, Eddie Bauer, Roche Bobois, and many others. Using our proprietary method of analytics and research, we place our clients in locations that maximize their store profits. If you’re interested in learning more about how The Greenberg Group can help your company in its retail expansion, call Steven Greenberg at 516-295-0406 x 204 or our Chief Marketing Officer, George Damanis at extension 203 or visit thegreenberggroup.com.
0 Comments
 Staying up-to-date on news and trends in retail is important. I’m constantly reading and learning about what’s happening in our industry. Now, more than ever, it’s imperative to remain informed about quarterly results, store closings, landlord bankruptcies, and expansions. The Greenberg Group is not affiliated with these sources, I simply rely on them to keep me informed. Here are some of my favorite sources. Retail Dive  Retail Dive provides an amazing overview of the retail industry. They send a daily email newsletter with their top stories and cover a wide variety of topics on their website. I find their articles are informative and engaging. WSJ | Business - Retail  The Wall Street Journal has been the business news standard for a long time. Their longevity is a testament to the quality of reporting and their reporters’ abilities to find relevant news and write about them. The retail page within their Business section remains one of the best written sources in the industry. CNBC Retail  CNBC’s retail coverage is the product of three primary reporters Courtney Reagan, CNBC’s Senior Retail Reporter, Melissa Repko, CNBC’s Retail & Consumer Reporter (who pens most of the articles on CNBC’s retail page), and Amelia Lucas, Special to CNBC.com. CNBC.com’s retail coverage extends beyond real estate and covers more from an investor’s interest in retail; however, being a financial news organization with a heavy push to augment their television programming with a digital product allows for constant and consistent coverage around the clock and is not based on a subscription product, like WSJ or a newsletter like Retail Dive. As such, they are often first to market on some retail news. Business Wire | Retail News  Business Wire is a traditional wire service, and a Berkshire Hathaway company. This is source-material; it comes from you. This is where I access press releases that are published by retail brands, like yours. Retail Touch Points  Retail Touch Points offers a good mix of retail news and intriguing opinions in the retail industry. I find that as a source of information, this site looks to write about subjects you wouldn’t find in something more investor-centric, like CNBC, or as traditional, at WSJ. Retail Touch Points offers an interesting perspective and their articles are quick and interesting.
Of course, this list is not all-encompassing and I do utilize other sources to keep myself up-to-date; however, these are some of my go-to sources. … For over 33 years, The Greenberg Group has led the expansion of global and iconic brands like Lacoste, Gucci, Puma, Travis Mathew, Drybar, Crocs, Eddie Bauer, Roche Bobois, and many others. Using our proprietary method of analytics and research, we place our clients in locations that maximize THEIR store profits. If you’re interested in learning more about how The Greenberg Group can help your company in its retail expansion, call Steven Greenberg at 516-295-0406 x 204 or our Chief Marketing Officer, George Damanis at extension 203 or visit thegreenberggroup.com.   It’s November and you’re ready to execute on your company’s holiday retail strategy. The holiday store plans are probably arriving at your stores and the holiday retail associate hiring push is well underway, if not completed. Everyone is ready and hoping for a profitable, albeit different, holiday season. The shopper is always looking for great deals during the holiday season. So why aren’t you? Right now, there are deep discounts in rents at many of the premiere shopping centers across the country. We are seeing rents decline by as much as 50% from pre-COVID. If you’re thinking about the 2021 holiday season, as many of you undoubtedly are, you’re strategizing about how to generate higher profits and a better four wall contribution. One of the easiest ways of doing this is through lower overhead at your retail locations. To paraphrase Apple CEO Tim Cook, there’s one more thing; better retail store locations.  There are prime locations across the country that are historically 100% occupied that are now sitting 10%-20% vacant. The landlords I have spoken with over the last couple of months are showing signs of stress and are overwhelmingly offering below-market rents. There has never been a better time for your company to go shopping for holiday deals to drive higher profits in the next holiday season.
… For over 33 years, The Greenberg Group has led the expansion of global and iconic brands like Lacoste, Gucci, Puma, Travis Mathew, Drybar, Crocs, Eddie Bauer, Roche Bobois, and many others. Using our proprietary method of analytics and research, we place our clients in locations that maximize THEIR store profits. If you’re interested in learning more about how The Greenberg Group can help your company in its retail expansion, call Steven Greenberg at 516-295-0406 x 204 or our Chief Marketing Officer, George Damanis at extension 203 or visit thegreenberggroup.com.   In April, I saw how many national retailers were declaring bankruptcy and thought,
“There must be an upside to this.” I explored opportunities on behalf of two of my clients and discovered that landlords were not seeing any new deal flows. This resulted in a willingness, by landlords, to set asking rents far below their pre-COVID rates. I asked my research team to do a more analytical investigation and what they came back with was that retail rents were plunging fast and in some cases retail store rents were 30% to 50% below their February market rate. As my team and I compiled this information, we also learned there were growing vacancies in most of the top shopping centers in America. Centers that were historically 100% occupied were now 10%-20% vacant. After sharing our findings with our client Travis Mathew, they authorized us to find them the best real estate at below-market rents. Top performing centers in South Florida, Dallas, DC, Chicago, Miami, Nashville, as well as others, were identified and we began negotiations. With the uncertainty of COVID-19 and the consumers’ reaction to getting back to shopping, I structured deals that began with several years where Travis Mathew would only pay Percentage Rent and no fixed rent or extra charges. After several years a low base rent, against a Percentage Rent, would begin. In each of the deals, I also negotiated Tenant Allowances far greater than pre-COVID. These low rents and large tenant allowances took much of the risk out of the equation and allowed Travis Mathew to secure a healthy return on investment and four wall profit from the onset. Additionally, all of the deals included a tenant-only unilateral kick out, so we can leave if our sales do not hit our projection. We have been working diligently since we discovered these opportunities and currently have eight stores projected to open in 2021. I am working on multiple deals for our other clients that are structured similarly. I’m finding that as more companies like GAP, Zales, Brooks Brothers, and other brands consolidate AND close their brick and mortar stores, more premium locations are becoming available at a fraction of the cost. We feel this is an ideal time for a well-financed retail company to take advantage of this opportunity; however, the companies must fiercely negotiate the terms of any new deal and ensure the terms protect any downside or risk from the retailer. You can read about what I’ve experienced in negotiations with landlords in this article. … For over 33 years, The Greenberg Group has led the expansion of global and iconic brands like Lacoste, Gucci, Puma, Travis Mathew, Drybar, Crocs, Eddie Bauer, Roche Bobois, and many others. Using our proprietary method of analytics and research, we place our clients in locations that maximize THEIR store profits. If you’re interested in learning more about how The Greenberg Group can help your company in its retail expansion, call Steven Greenberg at 516-295-0406 x 204 or our Chief Marketing Officer, George Damanis at extension 203 or visit thegreenberggroup.com.  I have an important question to ask you.
How confident are you in your retail sales forecasting? If you’re thinking “I’m very confident, Steven,” then I say great! But how accurate have your forecasts been? Especially for stores you’re planning to open. As retailers work their way through the pandemic, and return to successful business openings, it’s never been more important for them to accurately forecast their retail store sales; not only in the coming year, but beyond. Additionally, it’s even more important to accurately project sales for new stores. Now rather than pose another question, what if told you something remarkable instead? Over the last 5 years, The Greenberg Group has accurately projected sales forecasts within 4.8% accuracy—that means our clients know how much sales to expect from a store location before they sign a lease. Our Head of Market Research, Gary Bienefeld notes, “The Greenberg Group has provided sales forecasting as part of its real estate advisory services for clients for over 15 years. Our sales forecast models are based on custom drive time trade area analysis of client store financial performance. We develop two different models; a sales-based model created off the comparative performance of client stores vs. like performing co-tenants, and a drive time analogue model which calculates market share performance at drive time bands of key demographic performance drivers. Some of our models combine both methodologies.” Mr. Bienefeld added, “As a result, on an aggregated store basis, our sales forecast models have resulted in projected sales variances to actual performance of within 4.8% depending on the sample size of the client store portfolio used in building the forecast models.” Amidst the economic landscape of a pandemic, cautious expansion is prudent; however, there has never been a more opportune time to expand. You can read about what I’ve experienced in negotiations with landlords in this article. I’m proud to say that our forecasting model has been essential in ensuring our clients achieve their required return on investment and four wall contribution. … For over 30 years, The Greenberg Group led the expansion of global and iconic brands like Lacoste, Gucci, Puma, Travis Mathew, Drybar, Crocs, Eddie Bauer, Roche Bobois, and many others. Using our proprietary method of analytics and research, we place our clients in locations that maximize retail store profits. If you’re interested in learning how The Greenberg Group can help your company in its retail expansion, call us at 516-295-0406 x 203 or visit thegreenberggroup.com to learn more.  You can’t miss the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the retail and real estate landscape; however, if you look past the initial shock of vacant retail locations across America, you’ll see an tremendous silver lining for tenants. With less retailers expanding, many landlords are seemingly desperate to fill vacancies and that is leading to lease terms that are overwhelmingly in favor of the tenant—to a historic degree. This means future retail stores will be more profitable, with more contractual protections for the company. The optics of multiple, long-term vacancies, caused by the pandemic, are creating better lease terms than have been seen for the last twenty years, but this window of opportunity could close within the next ninety days, as strides are made in fighting the virus, shoppers’ comfort levels growing about going out in public, and restrictions from government shutdowns loosen. Here’s a closer look at what we are seeing landlords offer retail tenants. Historically Low Rents  An obvious result of vacancies is lower rents; however, when you take the optics of a heavily-vacant retail center into account, the strength of the negotiation rests firmly in the hands of a prospective tenant and their representatives. Therefore, it isn’t uncommon to negotiate to level as low as fifty percent less than what was being agreed upon before March 1. Better Tenant Allowances and Landlord Buildouts  Landlords are willing to give more tenant allowance than they ever have to fill vacancies. This equates to tenant allowance of double or triple what we’ve seen before. Additionally, landlords are increasingly willing to take on more work and waive certain charges, like marketing, advertising, and merchants association. Long-term Leases and Early Termination  Landlords are assuming more of the risk right now at an astonishing level. Tenants are able to secure long-term leases (upwards of ten to fifteen years) with rents far below market value. Moreover, tenants can secure “kick outs” in their leases which minimizes their risk even further by allowing them to break the lease after 3 years, if sales do not reach a set sales figure. Far Greater Opportunity for Profitability  Ultimately, all of these concessions that landlords are willing to make come down to one indisputable fact; companies that sign leases now are going to have more-profitable retail stores for many years to come. Between more landlord buildouts, bigger tenant allowances, more waived fees, and substantially lower rents, tenants are going to experience historically-greater four wall contributions. The retail landscape is still evolving to the “new normal” of existence within a global pandemic. It’s important to note that evolution is continuous and although the market has shifted to being overwhelmingly-favorable for tenants, this will not last long. Once professional sports can let fans into their stadiums and arenas, the strength will shift once more. … For over 30 years, The Greenberg Group led the expansion of global and iconic brands like Lacoste, Gucci, Puma, Travis Mathew, Drybar, Crocs, Eddie Bauer, Roche Bobois, and many others. Using our proprietary method of analytics and research, we place our clients in locations that maximize retail store profits. If you’re interested in learning how The Greenberg Group can help your company in its retail expansion, call us at 516-295-0406 x 203 or visit thegreenberggroup.com to learn more.
|
