It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

If you are like most Americans, you feel better this year, but there is still a nagging doubt in the back of your mind, “is this as good as it gets?”  True, the economy has picked up, spending is up, the recession is no more, but we are still feeling the pinch.  How shall we shop for Christmas this year?

We did some digging to find out how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.

The following figures provide some context for the economic growth since before the recession until after, with per capita GDP not yet recovered to pre-2008 levels:

The gross domestic product increased from $13.3 trillion in 2007 to $15.1 trillion in 2012.

GAFO retail sales seem to be slowly recovering from the recession, and consumers are spending again.  Consumer confidence is back up to about 73 percent of what it was in 2006, but spending at shopping centers is ACTUALLY DOWN in real constant dollars (adjusted for inflation):

GAFO retail sales in the nation increased from $968 billion in 2002 to $1,032 billion in 2010,  for a compound average growth rate of 1.1 percent.  However, from 2007 to 2010, compound average growth was  -.03 percent nationally.

As everyone knows, brick-and-mortar stores are in competition with internet retailers for market share.   With the ease of shopping online in the comfort of your home or office, and the ability to compare sale prices amongst retailers, the brick-and-mortar stores have to come up with creative ways to appeal to the consumer as the better way to shop drawing them to their retail store locations.  Some retailers are offering free shipping, extended hours along with other special promotional items available only in stores.

Electronic shopping and mail order retailers suffered only a mild set back during the recession and bounded back with sales for the twelve months through February 2012 accounting for $308 billion.  The overall sales market rose 30 percent since the peak in 2008 as reported in an article, “Retail Sales Recover, Mostly, From Recession”, written in The New York Times, by Floyd Norris.

One of the biggest impacts of the recession on the retail market is the change in the behavior of shoppers.  People are bargain shopping and looking for the biggest bang for their buck.  They are more interested in products or items that are reliable and have lasting value rather than purchasing the latest gadgets.

Consumers are looking to save money where possible, which has increased on-line shopping as well as sales at discount and dollar stores such as Wal-Mart, 99 Cent stores and Target.  Not only are shoppers finding better bargains, they are saving time and money especially when factoring savings of not having to drive with high gas prices.

The recession has also caused a spike in sales at thrift shops/resale stores,  as  the number of resale shops opened within the last year increased approximately seven percent.

According to comScore.Inc,  holiday retail spending over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend was estimated at $59.1 billion dollars nationally, up nearly 13 percent over last year.   Black Friday online sales exceeded $1 billion, rising 26 percent to $1.04 billion.

How do you feel this year?  Let us know if your pocketbook feels lighter or if you are back to normal.  Have we stabilized at the new normal? We are anxious to hear from you!

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Revealing National Retail Trends

Recently, I participated in a round table discussion with other retail experts in Southern California.  Shopping Center Business just published the following article about that discussion entitled “Revealing National Trends.”

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Feature Article, May 2010 – Shopping Center Business

“Revealing National Trends”

Southern California Roundtable leads to discussion of trends that can be applied nationally.
Roundtable moderated by Jerrold France and Randall Shearin

Shopping Center Business held a retail roundtable hosted by Holland & Knight at the City Club on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles.

Shopping Center Business recently held a retail roundtable in Los Angeles, hosted by the law firm of Holland & Knight at the City Club on Bunker Hill. Attendees of the roundtable were Pat Donahue, Donahue Schriber; Sandy Sigal, Newmark Merrill; Jill Bensley, JB Research Co.; Jeff Kreshek, CIM Group; Bill Stone, Excel Realty; Jeff Green, Jeff Green Partners; Mark Schurgin, The Festival Companies; Greg Lyon, Nadel Architects; Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, Lifescapes International; Tamsen Plume, Holland & Knight; Karl Lott, Holland & Knight; and Susan Booth, Holland & Knight.

SCB: Southern California is an important market as a lot of retail trends are created here. What do you get as an overall sense of the market here?

Donahue

Donahue: We are better off than we were a year ago. There were relatively no transactions last year. Things are starting to thaw out. We have exposure to four states and Southern California held up much better than Northern California, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Our occupancy in Southern California is even with a year ago, where our portfolio is off 400 basis points. Our rents in Southern California year over year are flat to plus two, versus a portfolio that was negative 11. Out of our entire portfolio, 80 percent is in California.

Stone: Our concentration is in the Southeast [United States]. The Southeast has been better; we have a number of centers there at 100 percent occupancy. When you go to the centers, not only are the parking lots full, but there restaurants are full. There are not as many people shopping out west. The whole country has been waiting for the other shoe to drop. In California, everyone is worried about the state. There has been some hesitation here on the part of people to go out and spend. People are holding their money.

Bensley: I looked at the personal savings rates back to the 1960s. This year, the savings rate is 3.3 percent, and that is down, which is good for the shopping center industry because consumer spending is two-thirds of our economy. Last year, it was about 5 percent. In 1991, during the last recession, the savings rate was at 7 percent. In the 1980s, it was at 10 percent. It just shows you the transition of what we’ve done in taking out money from our homes. That is where all that money came from. It was the spending of cash that was then all lost with the value of our houses.

Donahue: We, as a country, took on more debt in the last 7 years than in the previous 40 years combined.

Bensley: It is astounding. It is bad for retail when people save more, but at some point we have to even out.

Donahue: If we go to what we were doing, we will all be out of business. We have to have a positive savings rate. The idea that you are supposed to live above your means is not good. I’m thrilled we’ve shifted to a positive savings rate. It is going to wreak havoc on our business, there’s no question, but it is going to weed out the people who shouldn’t be in this business. Circuit City, Linens ‘N Things and Mervyn’s only lasted 12 months in the downturn. These aren’t retailers who weathered the storm. They shouldn’t have been in business when they were. This recession is weeding those players out. At the end of the day you will come back with a much stronger economy, a much stronger country, and consumers who are doing the right things. We can’t be leveraging ourselves into this.

(Left to right) Stone, Schurgin and Sigal.

Sigal: A lot of the retail failures were a function of the credit markets shutting themselves off. We are seeing a return of some financing to the marketplace. There are the haves and have nots — there are tenants who have access to the capital markets and the REITs who have access. The have nots are just holding on for dear life. If their debt gets called they are done. California is such a large market, you can’t say ‘California is recovering.’ We have centers in the inner city, denser communities. That customer has continued to visit because there is nowhere else to go. Our tenants are the 99 Cents Only and the discounters. In this kind of environment, their marketplace has grown. They have the base who has no one else to go and they have a new group of shoppers. A lot of people will discover retailers like Walmart, K-Mart and Target, and once they discover it, they will keep going. Our L.A. region has seen no increase in vacancy. We are still at 95 percent. In San Diego, we’ve been affected; we are 400 basis points worse there, just around 90 percent. It is a function of high rents and it is dependent on the housing market. The Colorado market has been our best market. It has been steady…

Click Here to read the rest of the article at Shopping Center Business.

Shopping Center Business – Retailers Who Are Moving Ahead

Not everyone’s closing up shop — these retailers and restaurants have made strides in 2009, and are planning expansions in 2010, and beyond.

By Jill Bensley and Erica Barton

As the holidays approach, the retail industry is showing signs of new life. Buoyed by 3.5 percent third-quarter growth of the gross domestic product, the retail sector may have seen the worst.

Always important to the rebound are plans for store expansion. In fact, 2009 shows more than 250 individual retailers who had plans to expand by more than a total 10,000 units. A summary by merchandise class is given below:

Walgreens has the second largest number of stores planned in 2009, second only to McDonalds.

Announced plans for 2010 include more than 49 different retailers with plans for more than 3,500 new locations. While not all of the aforementioned expansions are in the United States, the sheer volume signals better times for the retail sector.

The Top 50 in 2009

A list of the top 50 expanding companies by number of units is shown in Chart 1. As can be seen, the most expansive include McDonalds at 1,000 new units; Walgreens at 554 units; Dollar General at 500; Subway at 484; Zara at 450 (through 2011) ; GameStop at 400;  Family Dollar at 385; Dollar Tree at 235; 7-Eleven at 200; and O’Reilly Automotive at 150. Obviously, the lower end of the retail spectrum is gaining the most in this recession…  (Click Here to read more.)

Where’s The Market?

Where’s The Market?
Experts give their opinion on where the market is, and when it will be back.
By Jill Bensley and Erica Barton

It’s been a while since we’ve heard any good news from the retail sector in the United States. You don’t have to be a genius to know that same-store sales have been declining at an increasing pace, and 2009 is a banner year for bad karma.

Figure 1 shows the percentage change of comparable store retail sales in current dollars from 1986 through 2008, according to ICSC. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, annual change kept pace with inflation and in some years outpaced inflation by several percentage points, peaking in 1999, at 6.7 percent. Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the rate of increase reverted to a slower pace for the next 6 years…(to read more, go to:  Shopping Center Business)

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