Over the past few months, here are a few random retail thoughts.
· Mathis Brothers Style is going to backfill most of the former JCP at Midwest City Town Center Plaza. So all you Lazy Boy and Ashley furniture fans in Midwest City, get ready for the spring 2023 opening. This is a good get for the center.
· Poag out of Memphis, who almost did a large town center project in Edmond (should have), has done an interesting joint venture with JLL. JLL doesn’t do a lot in our market but does most everywhere else. Poag will lead development efforts, their specialty, and JLL will provide leasing and management, their wheelhouse. Should be interesting to see how it goes.
An aside, it hurts OKC that we don’t have a large commercial developer like Poag. We have lots of good small and medium sized developers, but no local national developer presence.
· Dollar General always fascinates me…not sure what to make of this gem: in the last 12 months, the average new DG customer has an $80,000 household income!
· We all know constructions cost have gone up significantly since the start of the pandemic. Per CBRE, costs went up 11.5% in 2021 & 14.1% in 2022 compared to a historic average increase of 2.4%. If you need confirmation, a friend builds daycare buildings….cost in March of 2021, $2.6 million; cost now $3.6 million.
· My daughter in Boston has a Pelaton and loves it. Lots of people I know have one and love them. Pelaton lost $1.2 billion in the 2nd quarter….just how do you do they with a high quality product that has historically had strong brand loyalty? Bad management?
· This one perversely makes some landlords happy. Bed, Bath & Beyond is closing 180 stores and is getting back to the basics, in essence, trying to return the focus to customers. Funny how often retailers forget who pays the bills. They are going to do less private brands and cut $250 million in costs. So, why are some landlords happy? If you are in the real estate business and have ever done a deal with BB&B, they always played hardball and were never afraid to gig landlords whenever they could…karma.
· Vouri. I’ve talked about them before…workout clothes, started online. They are going brick and mortar in a big way….just opened a 5,000 sf store in SoHo, 30 total stores now, mostly in California. The plan is to open 100 more stores in the next 5 years. (Total aside; the New York Times just published a list of the 10 best and 10 worst places to work remotely….amazingly, the 10 worst were all in CA!)
· We can’t do one of these without mentioning Walmart. How about Walmart Creator, a one-stop portal for influencers. (If you don’t what an influencer is at this point, you might want to stick with your Sears Catalog). This gives influencer’s a way to earn commissions for promoting Walmart products; the site has links to products and will provide tracking analytics in a partnership with Impact.com.
· I suppose we can’t end without mentioning Amazon either…they are beginning to sell home insurance in the UK. I am so curious has to just how far Amazon can expand into other product lines.
