Category: Retail News

This is a relatively new feature to our site.  While we’ve periodically reported retail news throughout the years, we’d like to establish a regular digest of major retail events on a bi-weekly or as-warranted basis.  We’ll see how it goes.

As with our mall articles, interactivity is key.  While we’d like to try to cover all major news stories, this is not possible for practical purposes.  There are some stories we will inherently miss – we live in a big world full of a lot of information.  As such, you can help us gather the news by posting relevant recent happenings to the comments page for these news features.  And, as always, you can post specific news items to their individual mall posts, if we have one. So, feel free to add stories you’d like to discuss and leave comments on the ones we’ve listed.

Comings and goings:

• Anchor Blue, a mall-based, youth-oriented fashion retailer, is going out of business, closing all 117 stores.  The chain, based in Southern California, is a mainstay in malls in the western United States.  Originally Miller’s Surplus, and then Miller’s Outpost, the chain once had stores in the Midwest and Southeastern states, but during recent troubles had pared down its locations.
• Target is taking the Great White North by storm, offering to buy up most of the Zellers locations throughout Canada.  I haven’t seen the list yet, but this will give Target a presence in many Canadian malls.  This strategy came as a surprise to many analysts, who did not expect Target to be this aggressive.  There are many details to be worked out, but Target hopes to open 100-150 stores in Canada by 2014.  In a twist of the story, they may have to use a different name, due to another company’s extant trademark on the Target name in Canada.
• Sears at the former Rolling Acres Mall is closing by April 2011.  Sears, along with JCPenney Outlet, was one of the mall’s original tenants in 1975, and had stayed open after the mall closed permanently in October 2008.
• Sears is also closing its store at the failing Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, where it was also a charter tenant.  The mall’s occupancy rate has dwindled in recent years due to a geographic shifting in retal investment in focus away from the North Avenue corridor and onto the Randall Road corridor.
• Sears is closing yet another store at the beleagured Raleigh Springs Mall near Memphis.  Sears is the last anchor store at Raleigh Springs, so don’t expect this one to be around much longer.
• Sears’ Kmart division is closing a bunch of stores.
• Macy’s is closing at Austin’s nearly empty Highland Mall in March 2011.  Austin Community College is considering buying the space, and the few remaining tenants in the mall are worried about their futures.
• Macy’s is also closing its store at south-suburban Atlanta’s failing Union Station Mall.  Originally called Shannon SouthPark Mall, the departure of Macy’s leaves the mall with only one anchor, Sears.
• Borders has revealed major liquidity problems, including being unable to pay its vendors and publishers.  They are closing many stores, including the high profile Michigan Avenue location in Chicago as well as a distribution center in Nashville.  Their problem is not unique among bricks-and-mortar bookstores, as many others are losing out due to eReaders, iPads, and internet booksellers.
• Saks Fifth Avenue is leaving Denver’s upscale Cherry Creek Mall in Denver, where it has been a charter tenant since 1990.  In 2010, Saks closed stores in San Diego and Orange County, CA, Portland, OR, Long Island, NY, Charleston, SC, and Plano, TX.
• Bealls Texas is leaving the troubled Midway Mall in Sherman, TX.
• Abercrombie and Fitch is apparently paring down locations, closing stores at the Post Oak Mall in Texas, Broomfield Crossing near Denver, Southgate Mall in Missoula, MT, and Peachtree Mall in Georgia.
• Tax-free upscale shopping comes to the northeast corridor, as Nordstrom plans to open its first Delaware location at the Christiana Mall in April 2011.
• Lowe’s opens soon at Bergen Town Center in Paramus, New Jersey, formerly Bergen Mall.  Wonder what they did with the underground Village Mall relic?
• Opry Mills, a large Nashville mall that has been closed since flooding devastated it in May 2010, sees a glimmer of hope for re-opening. It probably won’t be until 2012 or later, though.  The mall has been mired in troubles since the flood, including fights between the owner and the insurance company.
• Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods are coming to replace the vacant Boscov’s at South Hills Village, a successful mall near Pittsburgh.  They plan to be open by July 2012.
• The north Tucson Safeway grocery store will reopen today, one week after a national tragedy occurred there.

Other retail news:

• A gunman holed himself up at Baja Fresh in the Chandler (AZ) Fashion Center after firing shots at undercover police officers outside Sears, causing a five hour long standoff that eventually ended peacefully.
• The Syracuse Post-Standard reported today that Destiny USA has not indicated when it will finish construction on the 1.3 million square-foot addition to Carousel Center mall, which was abruptly halted in 2009 despite being 90 percent finished.
• A flashmob, apparently organized through social media, apparently turned into a disturbing, scary fracas on Jan 2 when it descended upon a suburban Milwaukee mall.  Witnesses at Mayfair Mall said they were trampled and had to run for cover, fearing for the worst, as 50-60 youths ran through stores and trashed them.  “A crowd of like 50 to 60 kids just came barreling through the upstairs door at Boston Store, knocking down everything they could touch. They went running down the stairs. All that we heard was glass breaking. There was security yelling to every manager to lockdown the doors, lockdown the mall, lockdown the store,” one customer said, according to WISN-TV.  Also, at the same time the flashmob occurred, gunshots were fired in an attempted robbery in the parking lot.  Mayfair is one of Wisconsin’s largest and best malls, and Milwaukee is no stranger to the perception of crime killing off retail venues.  A 1992 murder in Milwaukee’s Northridge Mall parking lot, perpetrated by a white man against his pregnant wife, and blamed on a black man, began a perception of crime at the mall that contributed significantly to its downfall and closure a decade later.  What will happen to Mayfair after this incident, which coincidentally was perpetrated by mostly black youths?  According to a WISN-TV poll, 42% of over 2,500 respondents indicated they would not be returning to the mall, ever.

This isn’t a shocker, but according to an article in the Wall Street Journal (which has been reprinted all over the place, including the San Francisco Chronicle), Borders plans to close another 200 of its Waldenbooks stores, leaving a paltry 130 remaining in the chain. Despite what the article says, it’s unlikely even those are long for this world.

In an era where the long tail of content is well-served online, Borders and Barnes & Noble have survived by positioning themselves as cultural and social gathering spaces. Plus, the stores are big, so they can carry a lot of titles. Waldenbooks and B. Dalton–who B&N is closing up at the same time–have no such luck. These tiny stores were always meant to bring a representative selection of literature to shopping malls and small towns, and like record stores before them, there’s just no need anymore.

It’s still a little sad, since I have plenty of fond memories of shopping at the Waldenbooks in my local mall when I was young.

Two large, popular chains are coming to New York City this month.  Tim Horton’s, the venerable Canadian donut-and-coffee outlet, is opening 12 outlets across Manhattan and Brooklyn this month, with 3 more coming in August.  The stores are replacing former Dunkin Donuts outlets, and hopefully will find a niche in one of the toughest and most saturated markets in the world.  These locations aren’t the first in the country for Tim’s – they’re already in 11 U.S. states, mostly in New England and the upper Great Lakes.  Good luck to them, and may they open more. 

JCPenney, with stores in other parts of New York City, is opening a giant store in Manhattan Mall across from Herald Square on July 31.  The store, on the former site of Gimbel’s, Abraham and Straus, and Stern’s, is the first and only location in Manhattan.  In accordance with opening one of the chain’s largest stores in the densest city in the country, JCP is embarking on a hip marketing campaign, attempting to debunk the chain’s reputation for being average and unfashionable.     

In sadder news, the economy has claimed two more chains: Smith & Hawken, an upscale garden retailer, and Ritz Camera.  Smith & Hawken is a 56-store chain owned by lawn-care giant Scotts Miracle Gro, of suburban Columbus, Ohio; however, the Smith & Hawken chain is based in tony Marin County, California.  Ritz Camera, a 400-store chain operating under that name and several others, including Boater’s World, is also closing all of its stores unless a last-minute save occurs.  The hope is that a going-concern buyer will purchase at least some of the stores to keep the chain going, but it’s not looking good.  In the end, it means more vacancies for your local mall.

In a bit more astonishing news, a family clothing/variety chain that went out of business earlier this year is back in the fray, somewhat randomly.  Goody’s family clothing, which closed all 287 stores earlier this year, has been reinvigorated by Texas-based Stage Stores, Inc., who purchased the Goody’s name and intends to reopen Goody’s-branded stores in markets where Goody’s existed and was proftable.  Kind of neat.

 

According to an article in the May 15, 2009 Columbus Dispatch, Big Lots – a discount chain known for selling overstock and closeout merchandise – aims to make an even bigger name for itself in the eye of the consumer. 

Not only is it the company’s first new store in central Ohio since 2005, it is a departure from the past strategy of locating in retail centers and strip malls aimed at discount shoppers.

By choosing a former Linens ‘n Things site across from Polaris Fashion Place mall, Big Lots is hoping to upgrade its profile and test some new ways of presenting its merchandise.

“This is the kind of location we couldn’t touch in the past,” said Chief Executive Steve Fishman. “Now that our performance has improved and there is a good supply of valuable real estate available, we can capitalize on prime real-estate opportunities like Polaris. We’ll feature the same great deals Big Lots customers have come to expect — in an A-plus location and in our hometown.”

Such expansion is actually to be expected for a company such as Big Lots during an economic downturn, said Sandy Skrovan, senior vice president and lead analyst at Columbus-based consulting and analysis firm Retail Forward.

“Generally speaking, a recession is a good time to be in the dollar store/closeout business,” Skrovan said. “Solid performance results being turned in by some leading small-format value retailers are enabling them to invest in more stores” or renovate old ones.

The 35,000-square-foot Polaris store showcases a “next generation layout” for Big Lots, including a center court, better lighting, new signs and wider, angled aisles.

I’m not sure if this will be Big Lots’ only location like this, but it’s certainly a departure from the norm.  And, although they don’t appear to be changing up the merchandise mix itself, the change in marketing tactic is almost certain to acquire the type of customer Big Lots hasn’t been able to nab – upper to upper-middle class households. 

As an example, the company is displaying furniture on a hanging rack above a piece from the same set. “We got that idea from Ikea,” Johnson said.

If you think about it, the price points at Ikea and Big Lots are similar, but the difference in what kind of shopper comes in the door depends on the marketing.  Ikea, with its suave, nordic-chic coolness attracts a wide variety of upmarket shoppers who aren’t the typical bargain-hunter – just go to an Ikea any weekend and count the number of BMWs, Lexuses, and Land Rovers all waiting to drive away some oddly-named household item.  In contrast, Big Lots’ marketing has – until now – been directed at a lower-income demographic, with handmade-looking and outdated signage and decor.  In addition, Big Lots stores are unabashedly dowdy – most of them are in reclaimed deadbox spaces, and much of the time all Big Lots did to renovate them was to move in their merchandise and flip on the power switch. 

This type of marketing is especially prescient given the gloomy economy.  Now more than ever it’s especially approprate for dollar stores and discounters to appeal to a wider demographic spread, since even the upper middle class is in need of a bargain today.  Entering into mass market appeal also means entering into anchor spaces in malls, which I think is great for malls in a time when diversification may be the key to staying afloat.  Malls across the country are thinking of creative ways to fill large junior-anchor and anchor spaces in a time when a gigantic store in this space is outmoded and obsolete as an efficient, profitable business model.  We’ve seen stores like Forever 21, Steve & Barrys, entertainment, and other boxes take these spaces with wildly varying amounts of success.   

What do you think about stores like Big Lots, box Dollar stores, and other extreme-discounters entering into junior and anchor spaces in malls?