At the International Council of Shopping Centers annual RECon convention, the emerging trends team at Phillips Edison released insights into opportunities innovative retailers are embracing in the evolving retail landscape. The most noteworthy include:
Food Halls - Significantly important to entrepreneurs, communal dining offers opportunities to develop and profile new food concepts with low barriers to entry from shared space and shared kitchens.
Pop-Up Shops - Not only a means to test new products in new markets, but also effective for monetizing surplus inventory through a liquidation format.
Fast-Casual Dining - Expected to dominate 20% of retail space by 2025, consumers are demanding quality, fast-casual concepts that align with health-conscious and expanding palates.
Showrooms - With smaller store footprints in high-traffic areas, specialized retailers are minimizing costs and increasing inventory turnover by combining ecommerce with brick-and-mortar.
Experiential Retail - Classes on how to use products effectively or cook new dishes not only get customers to locations, but present innumerable opportunities to upsell more products - a new set of kitchen knives will perfect how a new dish is prepared at home.
Fortis Business Advisors places considerable importance on alignment with trends for the benefit of the clients we serve. At some capacity, we have been directly involved or represented clients in several of the trends identified. In time some, if not all, of the trends presented may ultimately evolve into becoming the current retail environment.