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Industry News

Storefronts: What the tenants are up to

February 20, 2020

The week’s top retail headlines…

L Brands will sell a 55 percent controlling stake in lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret to private equity firm Sycamore Partners. The deal values Victoria’s Secret at $1.1 billion. L Brands’ Bath & Body Works will be a public, stand-alone company. Bloomberg

Walmart is finding ways to turn its stores, its website and the traffic they attract into new revenue streams, CEO Doug McMillon told analysts. “Health and financial services and advertising,” he said, “have the potential to be significant revenue generators.” Reuters

Texas-based home-decor chain Pier 1 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is seeking a buyer. The company said last month that it would close half of its 936 stores, including all its locations in Canada. The New York Times (tiered subscription)

Bed Bath & Beyond is developing three store formats and redesigning existing stores to better accommodate buy online, pickup in-store customers. For existing stores, the company will widen aisles, reduce clutter, cut inventory and revise signage to increase visibility and clarity. MarketWatch

This summer Nerd Street Gamers is to open the largest public e-sports gaming venue on the West Coast. The 26,000-square-foot Localhost Los Angeles, in Hawthorne, Calif., will offer 375 gaming consoles and room for hundreds of spectators. Reuters

IKEA Dubai’s new promotion enables customers to trade in time spent traveling to the store for discounts on merchandise. Customers can use their Google Maps time line to demonstrate the amount of that time. Forbes

Italian men’s accessories brand Tonino Lamborghini is to open its first U.S. store, in Las Vegas, at the Appian Way Shops, at Caesars Palace. Fox 5

Lands' End will open its first stand-alone Virginia store, at Fair Lakes Shopping Center, in Fairfax, this month. Lands’ End has plans to open 40 to 60 new shops within the next few years. Patch

The Body Shop is doing away with interviews, background checks and other traditional hiring strategies, exploring instead the idea of “open hiring,” by which the first candidate to meet a job’s basic requirements gets the position. A test at one of the company’s distribution centers significantly reduced monthly turnover. Charged

Wren Kitchens is bringing its vertically integrated retail to the U.S.

Growing chains

U.K.-based Wren Kitchens will open its first U.S. store, on Boston Post Road in Milford, Conn., this summer, followed by several units throughout the Northeast. The former Babies R Us site will transform into a kitchen design showroom with more than 100 kitchen displays. The 31,500-square-foot store will feature 100 different kitchen displays, 3D virtual reality to bring customers’ visions to life, and kitchen design tools. In the U.K. Wren designs, manufactures and delivers 2,000 kitchens each week through its 90 showrooms. The company will open its first U.S. manufacturing facility this spring, in Hanover Township, Pa.

Showfields is on track to open its second location, a two-level, 14,300-square-foot venue on Miami’s Lincoln Road, in May. The new Showfields will feature 40 to 50 pop-up shops, name-brand spaces and art installations, as well as an indoor-outdoor restaurant, a speakeasy, a theater for live performances, and some tattoo parlors and body-piercing stations. The original Showfields, marketed as the “most interesting store in the world,” is a four-level store in New York City’s NoHo neighborhood. There, pop-up shops, events, exhibitions and performances help brands raise their profiles and sales. “As the world becomes more digital, people are craving more physical retail,” said Showfields co-founder and CEO Tal Zvi Nathanel at ICSC’s New York Deal Making in December. “People become more thirsty for physical interaction.”

Showfields, Lincoln Road, Miami

Ree Drummond, the self-proclaimed Pioneer Woman who turned her personal blog into a lifestyle brand that includes a best-selling series of cookbooks and a TV series on Food Network, is opening a second store in downtown Pawhuska, Okla. The shop, which will specialize in Pioneer Woman–branded merchandise, is expected to open by April, near the 20-room Pioneer Woman Boarding House hotel and Drummond’s flagship store, Pioneer Woman Mercantile.

Ree Drummond's blog has become a world-famous lifestyle brand

By Brannon Boswell

Executive Editor, Commerce + Communities Today

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