“Overall, the conference is a good indicator for the future of our industry, as it showcases what researchers are currently focusing on and what is to come,” said Jean Lambert, vice president of research at ICSC.
The topic of millennials, as they are becoming the biggest age group, is extremely relevant for many in the retail real estate business. Another group highlighted was teenagers known as generation Z or the ‘I’ generation, due to their prominent usage of all things ‘I’ such as the I-phone. This group processes information much faster than any other generation and early research shows they make better use of that information than any other group so far.
The ICSC research team conducted a panel discussion titled ‘Unpacking E-Commerce Sales Data.’ "There are different types of data sets emerging, which are very exciting for our industry, like social media and mobile phone analytics, and as researchers, it is critical we weigh all the pros and cons of any form of data to better understand what is relevant and what is just noise,” said Jean Lambert.