Anchors American cities would die for!
Anchors a blessing for city, guru says
18th November 2009 http://tiny.cc/085be
“London’s core is blessed with solid anchors American cities would die for.
Now, says an urban retail guru, retailers must focus on understanding customer motivations to boost sales and capitalize on downtown’s assets.
Robert Gibbs brought that message yesterday to the combined annual meetings of MainStreet London and the London Downtown Business Association.
Gibbs, of Birmingham, Mich., a Detroit suburb, has helped revamp the core of 300 cities.
He said focusing on customer behaviour and needs increases retail sales, makes good things happen in the core and helps stem the flight to the suburbs.
“I will be bringing a lot of people back here to show what you do,” he said.
Downtown anchors that include the “public library”, the John Labatt Centre, Covent Garden Market and Kingsmill’s department store, drew his praise.
“These are anchors most American cities would fight for,” he said, “even one or two of them. You have four or five.”
Gibbs said he focuses on sales at the street level and shared a few tips for retailers who have about eight seconds to capture the attention of the typical passerby:
An open door will boost sales 35%, studies have shown.
An attractive storefront and window are keys to grabbing attention.
Staying open past 5 p.m. and on weekends, while hard for independent retailers, is crucial to boosting the bottom line.
Weekly rotation of upfront merchandise.
“Retail is dependent on trends and fads,” he said. “We have to get you (the customer) to think you are out of style four or five times a year.”
Simple and inexpensive changes can pay big dividends, the consultant said.
He said shoppers today are “time-stressed” and shopping is no longer the social activity it once was.
Women, in particular, know what they want, browse less and spend more money in less time than their mothers.
Core merchants should understand the woman shopper is key, because, he joked, “men haven’t shopped for about 4,000 years.”
And women don’t like uneven sidewalks, poor lighting or having to park far from stores.
Department stores were the key to the success of city cores as retailing centres and must be lured back downtown, he said. Many major retailers have recently developed core-friendly architecture that shows a willingness to consider downtown locations.
Gibbs said in his city of Birmingham, shoppers get two hours of free parking at city garage structures. But they pay a premium at parking meters along the street.
Shoppers in a rush are willing to pay the premium and revenue to the core has been substantial.”
I don’t see why our mayor has to go to Chicago, or Germany for ideas when all he has to do is go up the 401 to London. London with its Mainstreet initiative has done more things right for their core than most cities in Ontario. A new public library, a new arena (with limited parking!!) all within the last ten years.
Tags: Downtown, London Ontario, Parking, public library, retail, store fronts, women shoppers
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An attractive storefront and window are keys to grabbing attention.
Staying open past 5 p.m. and on weekends, while hard for independent retailers, is crucial to boosting the bottom line.
Wow! Really? Haven’t residents and patrons been saying this for years?
The DWBIA has tried to do the first sentence for a while (why are they paying for this and not the city, I don’t know?)
As for staying openlater, that is a no brainer. If strip mall retail can do it; especially independent stores in Tecumseh then why not downtown Windsor?
Too bad our new arena is built 20 minutes from downtown. Spitfire games, minor hockey leagues and especially tournaments would’ve been a huge boost to downtown Windsor hotels, restaurants and retail. What could have been!
“Many major retailers have recently developed core-friendly architecture that shows a willingness to consider downtown locations.”
Besides Wal-Mart that I posted earlier, does anybody know what or who the other major retailers are that we can go after?
Gee! A new public library in the downtown is one of the anchors for London, anybody at city hall reading this? Nah!
When it comes to retail in our downtown, it appears that most of our retailers are still working on a mid 20th century business model, where they close their doors and roll up the side walks, much like Yonge street back in the 1960’s.
“Core merchants should understand the woman shopper is key, because, he joked, “men haven’t shopped for about 4,000 years.” This is true of Windsor’s downtown, there isn’t anything approaching high fashion or just fashionable at all for women downtown.
Home Depot opened up in one or two locations in Manhattan. Right downtown Toronto we have several traditional big box retailers - Best Buy, Future Shop, Canadian Tire, Home Sense, The Brick. It’s completely possible for the above vendors to shift product assortment to meet urban lifestyle needs, but it takes more than just the retailer to do so… there must also be help from city/municipal leaders.
Has Windsor never had a department store downtown? I’m not thinking “big box” per se, but Sears, or The Bay?
Yes Windsor had a department store once; Smith’s was the biggest of its time and I remember going with my mom to shop there!
Does the building still exist? What is it being used for now?
What a great article and inspiration. London really has done so much work in the past 10 years and is seeing the fruits of its labours as we speak.
Yes, we had a few department stores downtown. Kresge and Wolworths were both on Ouellette. We recently had Can Tire downtown and Shoppers Drug Mart is about the largest retailer left. We’ve also had Le Chateau, Benetton, Dacks, La Vie en Rose, and many other national chains that have left the core in the past 15 years.
Though London’s Galleria Mall may be considered a flop, they’ve moved on and bounced right back, fixing many of the problems associated with an urban downtown.
It would seem to me that, like talking to an employee who is leaving your employ, we should be talking to the business that have left the downtown to find out what their impetus was to leave. This would be a starting point, at least. Right now there are only guesses, as educated as they may be, just guesses.
Did they leave because of crime?
Did they leave because of dimished sales?
Did they leave because of better tax incentives elsewhere?
Did they leave because of better rent elsewhere?
Did they leave because business dropped off?
Did they leave because of corporate policy?
I’m sure you can come up with other questions. And each retailer may be different, but it would be something worth looking at.
I always thought a Winners might be able to make it downtown.
Other than that we need population. Businesses go where people are, and even if we dont’ have people now. Businesses will go where people are planned to be. We don’t even have a concrete goal of how many residents we want to see added to our downtown.
If we had a realistic plan to add 10,000 residents to our core with concrete timelines and dedicated resources to achieve them (Thats walkerville, ottawa
Erie and Downtown) That alone could be taken to retailers to at least get them thinking about it and maybe searching for future real estate