Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/231459
THE COMMON AREA REAL ESTATE FOLLOWS THE WEB, DRONES DELIVER, GROCERY-ANCHORED CENTERS STAY STRONG The world's shopping holiday Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving known for its high retail sales volume, is quickly becoming a global phenomenon. In Britain a group of retailers, including Walmart-owned Asda and department store chain John Lewis, launched Black Friday sales. And consumers responded. For its part, Asda reported it sold 10,000 televisions in one hour during its Black Friday event. Canadian retailers have been offering Black Friday deals for a couple of years now in order to stop consumers from heading south of the border to take advantage of U.S. deals. This year Canadians spent 19.1 percent more on Black Friday than they did on the same day in 2013, reports credit-card processor Moneris Solutions. Meanwhile, Black Friday is also now part of Latin America's retail cal- endar. From Mexico all the way down to Argentina, many malls and retailers offered deals on Nov. 29. A handful of retailers in Latin America adopted the Black Friday tradition a few years back, and it has grown steadily ever since. This past year some malls opened at the crack of dawn. This was the third year Panama's malls were celebrating, opening as early as 6 a.m., with some items discounted 70 percent to lure shoppers. In Nicaragua the Chamber of Commerce estimates that retailers sold $12 million of merchandise over the Black Friday weekend. In Brazil, restaurants, beauty salons and even gas stations joined in. Guatemalan malls have been celebrating the day for the past five years, and all the major malls in El Salvador participated this year. Back in the U.S. Black Friday has stretched into a whole weekend with several chains opening on Thanksgiving Day and shoppers spreading their shopping trips across several days. U.S. consumers spent about $10 billion on Black Friday, and an additional $2.6 billion on Thanksgiving Day, $6.2 billion on Black Saturday (Nov. 30) and $3.7 billion on Black Sunday (Dec. 1), according to consultancy ShopperTrak. The situation room Mall of America has integrated its media channels to provide better customer service and increase sales. The mall's website, social-media accounts, and concierge and security telephone lines will all operate from a common office, says Maureen Bausch, the mall's executive vice president of business development. All requests and questions will be routed through this office, called the Enhanced Service Portal, or ESP. Tenants will also benefit from the amalgamation of these channels, because the ESP team will be able to identify shopper trends, Bausch says. "We'll look at what they're saying online," she said, "what they're texting us and what they're actually calling about and put it all together to meet the needs of our customers 24-7." 6 SCT / J A N u A R Y 2 0 1 4 Next stop: Retail New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is transforming its high-traffic subway concourses into shopping centers. The MTA named Columbus Development LLC to develop and manage a high-end, 27,000-square-foot retail destination underground at the Columbus Circle subway station. Completion is set for early 2015. Some 21 million people pass through the concourse each year, according to the MTA. The MTA has also hired pop-up shop brokerage firm Storefront to find temporary tenants for retail spaces in six different subway stations around the city.