Was once a busy part of Lower Hutt
Sad
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Was once a busy part of Lower Hutt
Sad
Was down Lambton Quay the other day ....hardly anybody around just before lunch time
Didn’t see anybody in the big Hallenstein Glasson store had no customers in it .... no worries as all buying on line eh
Only matter of time that David Jones pulls the plug on Wellington
Currently doing due dilligence on a site just out of northlands.
ChCh amazes me. Its our best performing region, attributable IMO to mortgage to salary affordability, plus the golden years of insurance money flowing in. Malls don’t seem to be as attractive for prospective tenants comparative to Auckland , TGA and Waikato. The quakes have definitely changed the retail landscape for both Wellington and Chch
Optometrist told me people who couldn’t travel overseas this year are getting really expensive glasses ...and he also said that his audiologist mate was busy as supplying the top end expensive hearing aids
So spending goes on ....and they hopefully buying some new clothes as well.
Hey jimdog
As a matter of interest do traffic counts / footfall mean much these days when assessing sites or has virus impacts made them less meaningful.
Curious as retired now and been out of retail management for a few years
Depending on the sub-category of retail , yes.
Fashion - footfall is a must, generally speaking it's more of an impulse buy. I can't think of many specialist fashion retailers that do well that aren't in the malls. That's why there are so many empty high street shops across the country, which will only get worse with Covid changes (ie remote working - Plenty of articles in paper about this) When you think of Warehouse, Kmart etc they act as a mini mall in their own right, youre there for something else and no matter where you walk in those stores, clothes racks never leave your sight.
Niche/specialist retail - traffic counts/visibility/parking are what counts. We definitely are a destination shop, Parking makes a massive difference. Some of my best performing shops are the ones in which when a customer walks in the door there can be no doubt that the customers have walked in the doors for a reason!
In my field what I actually spend more time analyzing when looking at potential sites is population demographics, Median incomes, Age demographics etc. I have been surprised (both good and bad) after the fact, but for the most part the demographics have not let me down yet.
Now more than ever if you can do either footfall or destination retail well + a good local website (many brands are still making the mistake in NZ of trying to rebadge their overseas site) you will do well in retail.
Coming back to why I think HLG is doing so well, check out https://www.similarweb.com/. Search them compared to their competitors and you'll see in both NZ & Aussie they are strong comparatively and will only get stronger.
Interestingly some brands you would have assumed would have picked up on this still haven't moved to keep up. H & M springs to mind.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/114...e-store-by-now
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/s...demic-73386341
"Brick and click" is the only modelmaking money currently.
"BNPL"
there is a european company that does this for retailers but there is of course a cost.
Many thanks for the post and very very insightful as i imagine many of us invest with a certain element of risk awaiting some guidance from the companies.
We cant sit outside a store and count traffic or its not a great solution and on line mean we await statistic on retail and or guidance updates.
Fashion is not buying food distribution or other basic services and you can always buy from the op shop or Sally Army Shop.