Indeed, both experiential and community-driven retail environments require in-person activation to bring them to life, and the current situation is reinforcing these strategies for retail’s road to rebirth post-pandemic.  

Seemingly ahead of the trend when it comes to data, Designer Outlets and off-price retail locations have long relied on retail intelligence to work closely with their tenants with turnover-based leases and collective access to a comprehensive view of data.

At this crucial moment, landlords, asset managers and their tenants are having to work much more closely to get results. Performance-linked rents encourage a new type of community, one with connected partners working together to achieve the best performance fuelled by up-to-date information – A new connected retail.

Beyond the outlet sector, we are seeing more store lease agreements adapting this way which is a positive move. Owners with a true understanding of their occupiers can work smarter to deliver a clearer strategy that benefits both tenants, and their customers.   

Technology can aid the transformation of the owner and occupier relationship, helping to make it more collaborative.

Engaging and informative community tools that incorporate crucial communications (from pandemic assistance documents to changes in regulations) are naturally a key focus right now, but social shopping and tools to accurately measure initiatives and experiences will set real-world retail destinations apart post-COVID.

Even during the pandemic, there are opportunities to build a more effective and measurable way to acquire customers. Analytics have helped our clients immediately identify and nurture successful categories such as food-to-go, homeware and athleisure, as well as informing strategies to support those in need of assistance.  

The new retail is not about adding a draw for consumers through short-lived distractions. instead, it is a long road that starts now to inspire authentic community-driven mixed-use retail environments. 

Get in touch to discuss the architecture we can help you implement for a new, collaborative retail

Proptech is sometimes linked with disrupters to be wary of, but in 2020 it has come to represent the positive impact that technologies, new opportunities and processes can have in the revolution of real estate. 

Technology should support you and meet the evolving needs of your clients. It is right to demand holistic solutions with software that works with each asset to measure and determine if it is operating at its full potential, as well as providing an investment view.  Purpose-built software is an invaluable foundation to process data and connect users with the capability to work in multiple currencies and languages across a portfolio. Today, if you are not measuring, you cannot be effectively managing.  

Proptech exists to answer questions about how we engage and get value from real estate. We designed our solutions – such as the Retail Advantage platform – specifically to make measuring performance and managing assets easier. For the retail industry, using transaction data and traffic data are often the most valuable sources of customer information used to grow sales.  But data is everywhere, and our solutions not only collect customer insights, we produce analytics and incorporate available sources with feeds from tenant performance and marketing activity to weather and energy data.  Tools like data-rich 3D environments also help businesses really engage with the property they are managing.

2019 was the year that sustainability broke into the mainstream and proptech holds a great opportunity for environmental good and compliance.  A people-centric approach to technology is also gaining momentum by catering to the needs of individual users, tasks and roles.  From improving operations and efficiency to empowering decision-makers, we are in the middle of a digital and cultural transformation for the better.

Please get in touch to discuss your needs with one of our experts. 

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McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Ashford officially unveiled its 100,000 sq. ft. expansion last month, making it one of the biggest outlets the South of England has to offer. Home to Europe’s largest living wall which comprises over 120,000 plants, it is a good place to get your greens this holiday season. 

We have long worked with the group to collect and connect data across the McArthurGlen portfolio and our latest tools will provide analytics on the Designer Outlet Ashford expansion, which brings over 40 new stores, a new food piazza, an events space, a digitally-enhanced children’s playground and 725 additional parking spaces.    

At a recent Outlet Summit, ART’s director Gareth Jordan spoke about communities that have benefited from Outlets at the heart of regeneration. This £90 million project, which creates approximately 500 new jobs was highlighted by Ashford Borough Council and Kent County Council as key employment and economic drivers in the development of the town.

The group is currently constructing a seventh centre in the UK, McArthurGlen Designer Outlet West Midlands, an exciting new retail and leisure destination near Birmingham, which will open in 2020.

Please get in touch to discuss solutions for your retail and leisure destination.

We have reached a point where the quantity of connected devices means the ‘connected customer’ is really just the customer again. Online to offline or O2O is all about driving customers from their screens to stores.  Food and leisure activities are naturally enticing because they invite emotions that can only be fulfilled in the real world.  Customers want to connect with brands and products in a traditional physical way too, but that does not mean leaving their digital savviness at the door. Uniting data collection from online to offline is essential in a market where customers switch between channels.

O2O is often about streamlining service, but leveraging the unique opportunity in physical spaces relies on live events and the emotional side of the buying experience. Data can yield powerful actionable insight to help achieve positive emotional responses, but it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality.

Experiences are also about quality, so decision-makers need tools to innovate and investigate which events, promotions and environments work and why.  

From sales to footfall, social media to staff commentary, weather to WiFi; O2O is about connecting and leveraging data from across the business.  Put all of the channels you have to good use and both you and your customer will benefit.

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We have a hunch that the trend for customisation will continue to redefine retail.  When customers purchase a product they want choices beyond personalising it with their name. They want it to truly fit and enhance their lifestyle.

The same can be said for retail intelligence solutions.  Sure it is nice to see a management platform with your branding, but retail is being redefined by solutions that fit and enhance your brand and business culture.  Not just a front of house phenomenon, retailers, centre managers and investors should be offered customisation too.

Picture a plain pair of trainers and all the colours in the rainbow to choose from.  Now add laces, a different midsole, then choose a colour for the tongue text logo, and okay, okay, sometimes too many choices can be overwhelming.  Building business intelligence solutions for shopping malls, outlets and retail portfolios has given us the experience to provide a management platform with 1-click preset reporting, but it also comes with a plethora of choices and versatile data-mining tools.

Customise your dashboard or visualisations to get data delivering for you.  Retail Advantage is helping our clients achieve a better ROI from multiple data sources with the best view on data personalised to each business role.  From trainers to tech solutions, customised products will prosper. 

See us at SCMC 2018 

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Shopping centres are reinventing themselves and reaffirming their central role as a community hub.  This is impacting the tenant mix with an increasingly curated edit of surprising pop-ups along with key traffic drivers, kiosks and smaller shops. Temporary, more flexible units keep customers entertained and engaged, but can pose a challenge without the right retail intelligence.  Having the most complete picture of how your retail assets and business processes are performing enables you to adapt far more quickly to the ever changing conditions of retail-location management.

Retail Advantage is helping our clients leverage data and measure elements like the tenant mix to confirm or rethink the stores and locations that customers are responding to.

Fun or fine food offerings and events are increasing with experiences and environments designed for quality time with family and friends.  A lot of time, effort and budget goes into shoppable experiences, so the right tools to measure what does and doesn’t work and why is integral.  Retail Advantage makes exploring the value of an investment easier with a more transparent view on progress and the results of each initiative.  Analysis of your marketing activities and tenant coaching is enhanced through seeing the impact of a single action or multiple events from a variety of perspectives using intelligent, interactive tools.

The customer is more complex, shopping centres are more complex, but Retail Advantage gives you instant insights and greater understanding of your retail business.

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Tailored retail intelligence software empowers businesses with the tools needed to re-tune strategies and deploy tactics that are trending front of house.

Customisation

Customisation has been growing for a while and will continue to do so thanks to the development of technology coupled with the increasingly interactive role of consumers. This is a movement, not a passing trend.  Our experience shows that data solutions designed with customisation, not only enhance the user experience, but also the insights delivered.  We designed Retail Advantage with highly configurable dashboards to be user-intuitive and one-click-customisable. The right technology offers insight into business performance levels to ensure you are seeing everything you need to know, the way you want to see it.

Collaboration

Brand collaborations allow businesses to tap into the approach and customers of other organisations.  Behind the scenes collaboration is not only desirable, but more crucial in the age of omnichannel.  We help our clients with technology designed for collaboration. Each area of Retail Advantage enables reporting of key information relevant to your business situation. Detailed sharable reports provide strategic understanding of customer movements, spending patterns, property revenue and marketing performance.  

Experience

Customer experience is more important than ever. Moving from traditional methods of data collection and analysis can be a daunting step, but streamlining laborious manual data collection and automating reporting should also be a smooth experience.  Once up and running, the right software solution not only saves money, but valuable time.

Extensive experience in software systems developed working with the industry has shown the powerful role technology plays in transforming back-end systems with performance-enhancing analytics.  

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