Store closings were a fact of the retailing biz long before the Great Recession ever hit, but there's no doubt that weak operators have been going by the wayside in larger numbers in recent years. Despite this, new concepts are popping up that could reduce the number of vacant spaces currently sitting on the market, according to a Retail Traffic report.
Doug Healey, senior vice president of leasing for the East Coast with the Macerich Co., a regional mall REIT based in California, told Retail Traffic that many of the stores opened in past years focused on necessities. Today, a large number of the new formats are looking to capture more of consumers' discretionary spending dollars.
Melvita, a sister company to L'Occitane en Provence, sells natural and organic beauty care products. It operates stores in 20 countries outside the U.S. and is the top selling certified organic beauty brand in France. The company currently has three stores on the West Coast and plans to open a location in New York City sometime before the end of next year.
"The U.S. is the perfect market for Melvita because there is such a need for clarity in the marketplace about whether personal care products are actually organic and to what extent they are organic," Deanna Elstrom, vice president of Melvita U.S.A., told Retail Traffic.
Among other new concepts mentioned for expansion potential included Freshii, which bills itself as "the new generation of quick service dining." The chain, which plans to open 60 stores this year and has stores in Canada, the U.S., Austria and Dubai, offers a customizable menu made up of fresh, preservative-free foods in biodegradable packaging.
Matthew Corrin, the founder of Freshii, told Retail Traffic, "If Subway has 30,000 [stores], I believe we can achieve 10 percent of that number (in North America)."
Discussion Question: What new or fast growth retail concepts have impressed you recently? Do you see any commonalities among the successful new chains?