Marcel Proust has rightly said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”, and this was certainly validated to me on my recent trip to Chile and Argentina. Having been invited as a guest speaker at RECON 2013 – the International Council of Shopping Centres’ Latin American chapter, [...]

Stockland Ltd has cut 80 jobs as part of its renewed focus on cust-cutting, The Australian Financial Review reports. The newspaper reports the group is aiming cut gross overheads by 10 per cent in 2014 – half in staffing costs and the remainder in better processes and a national approach to procurement. Last week, Stockland said it was expecting [...]

This is a change being led by customers, and retailers have little idea where they are going. Take food retailing and Wm Morrison, the supermarket chain, for example. When chief executive Dalton Philips arrived in 2010 the retailer did not sell food online because it doubted whether it could make a profit via the internet. [...]

Stockland Ltd has cut 80 jobs as part of its renewed focus on cust-cutting, The Australian Financial Review reports. The newspaper reports the group is aiming cut gross overheads by 10 per cent in 2014 – half in staffing costs and the remainder in better processes and a national approach to procurement. Last week, Stockland said it was expecting its [...]

STARWOOD Capital Group is in talks to buy seven US shopping malls from Westfield for more than $US1 billion, a deal that would mark the latest in a flurry of big-ticket acquisitions of retail property. Starwood’s talks with Westfield aren’t yet in the final stages and still could collapse, according to people familiar with the matter. [...]

MEDIA RELEASE May 2013 Your favourite Outlet Centre, Birkenhead Point, home to over 120 fabulous brands on sale every day is set to continue its multi-million dollar redevelopment with significant improvement to the overall shopping experience by creating easier access throughout the centre, more retail space and maximising the waterfrontage. This exciting phase of works includes: Expanding and modernising [...]

MYER chief executive Bernie Brookes is still hesitant to declare an end to the retail downturn, despite continued sales growth in the third quarter of the financial year. Myer today reported sales of $652.5 million for the three months to the end of April, up 0.5 per cent from the same period a year earlier, or [...]

Myer has reported $652.5 million in sales for the three months to April 27, a 0.5 per cent increase from the previous corresponding year, as it remained cautious about the retail outlook. The department store chain said comparable store sales rose 0.4 per cent from last year, the fourth consecutive quarter of positive [...]

Following the opening of a new retail location in Melbourne last month, Apple is set to open another Australian Apple Store on May 25, this time in Adelaide. The Adelaide Apple Store will be Apple’s 20th retail location in Australia, and it is located at Rundle Place , a four-story shopping center that houses more than 70 stores. Adelaide is [...]

Browsing through a store’s clothing selection, trying things on and dealing with a salesperson is so last-century. Now tons of people do a bulk of their shopping, if not all of it, from the comfort of their own home, clicking away at what they like and sending back what doesn’t fit. According to a 2012 Forrester [...]

The pressure on specialty retailers from the internet, higher savings by households and a basic loss of interest in what they have for sale, has forced landlords to cut rents in a bid to keep vacancy rates low at shopping centres. While [...]

I recently spoke at the RealTech SF 2013 conference. The conference focuses on new companies and technology in the real estate industry. The event is run by Reesio. If you’re in the real estate space or interested in the intersection of real estate and technology, it’s a great event to attend. Retail is changing. Commercial real estate [...]

A couple of months ago, I found myself sitting with a number of bank executives over lunch and I asked them about future trends within retail banking. As the conversation bounced around the table, the one area I wanted to focus on was what goes on inside a branch, because it’s the public face of so [...]

Online retail giant Fab.com, which offers flash sales of designer products , has announced plans to open a physical store. The shop won’t be in New York, where Fab is based, though. It’ll be in Hamburg—right in the backyard of the notorious Samwer brothers, who launched a near one-to-one copy of Fab.com a couple of years ago in an [...]

By a staff reporter, with AAP Manufacturing activity in China slowed more than expected in April, official data shows, in a sign of further weakness in the world’s second-biggest economy. The official purchasing manager’s index (PMI) for China, released by the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP), fell to [...]

Once ignored in favour of glitzy offshore websites with their steep discounts, Australia’s traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers are staging a fightback for the hearts, minds and wallets of local consumers to win a greater slice of online sales. Although late to the party in terms of setting up credible and properly supported websites, the nation’s [...]

Two hatted chefs gone, one left. That’s the depressing form guide at Westfield Sydney, where twin-toqued Italian chef Alessandro Pavoni has joined Justin North as another casualty at the shiny central business district shopping centre. Pavoni opened Spiedo in 2010 at the then freshly redeveloped [...]

Why the RBA will cut rates – Why the RBA won’t cut Job ads continue to slide, says ANZ Retail sales slip after solid start to 2013 Economists and financial markets have looked through the raft of fresh economic data released today and say tomorrow’s decision on [...]