Shopping Centers Today

MAR 2015

Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)

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a Ralphs supermarket. "They just offer a great product, and we think it's going to bring a great clientele and a great demo- graphic to our center," said Berger. One of the strategies behind Barons' success and double-digit sales growth is keeping things simple, according to Joe's daughter Rachel, the company's marketing manager. "For us it has always been about the simplicity of our operations," she said. "What that means is that there are no sales, no gim- micks, no coupons. We really, really try to hone in on everyday low prices." Barons Market also operates in a smaller, neighborhood-market format. Some larger supermarket competitors operate 50,000-to-60,000-square-foot stores and may carry up to 50,000 differ- ent items. Barons stores typically measure between 15,000 and 19,000 square feet, with an inventory of about 10,000 items. "The customer wants to come in and out," said Rachel Shemirani, the family member speaking throughout this article. "They don't want 17 choices for spaghetti sauce for dinner. We give them three." Those three are: all-natural, organic and gourmet — all at a price roughly 30 per- cent lower than at other markets, she says. Barons puts products through a rigorous screening process before placing them on the shelves, accord- ing to Shemirani. A team of employ- ees from the different stores meets on a weekly basis to assess the product samples presented to the company. This involves tasting and evaluating about 80 to 100 new products each week. The team also reviews the ingre- dients and pricing before its members vote on whether to carry any given product in all the stores. The business is now about as well stocked with first- and second-generation family members as it is with specialty products. Joe's three brothers — Moe, Eli and Paris — followed Joe to Califor- nia, where Moe and Eli are store manag- ers and Paris is a buyer. Rachel's sister, Dana, is a buyer too, and a cousin, Bijan Moossazadeh, is vice president of operations. For now, the company's store-growth vision will be concentrated in Southern California, Shemirani said. Barons is looking at oppor- tunities in San Diego and in Orange and Riverside coun- ties, and possibly in the Los Angeles metro area as well. "It is really important to us to be in communities that are tight-knit, which allows us to do a lot of marketing that is grassroots," said Shemirani. When scouting locations, Barons typically tours the community and meets with business and civic lead- ers. The company likes to invest in the community through such things as Little League sponsorships and sup- port for school programs, Shemirani says. "Because our advertising budget is so limited, we prefer to put the money back into the community," she said. "We really like our stores to be a com- munity hub." SCT For leasing, contact Joe Shemirani, president at (619) 223-1696 or JoeShemirani@Bar- onsMarket.com 18 S C T / M a r c h 2 0 1 5 r e T a i l i n g T o d a y More retailers are merging their brick-and-mortar and online op- erations to create a seamless omni- channel shopping experience for customers. A National Retail Federa- tion survey of American, European and Australian retail and technology executives shows that 53 percent of the nearly 300 respondents are ex- pecting to implement a unified com- merce platform over the next few years, up from about 50 percent the year before. And 86 percent of those surveyed said they plan to imple- ment a unified commerce platform over the next 10 years. Changes in shopper habits are in- creasingly requiring centralized tech- nologies across traditional point-of- sale, e-commerce, call center and mobile touch points, so retailers are seeking to consolidate all these, which historically have been housed in multiple systems, says Tom Litch- ford, NRF vice president of retail technologies. Macy's Inc., for one, is combin- ing its online and in-store mer- chandising and marketing teams to promote growth in both channels. "Our business is rapidly evolving in response to changes in the way customers are shopping across stores, desktops, tablets and smart- phones," said Terry J. Lundgren, Macy's chairman and CEO. SCT Omni-channel is retailers' top priority

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