PRINTABLE VERSION HERE

At a time when travel is continuously restricted for many of our members, the reopening of the US borders before Christmas, as well as the NRF event in January, to which the IADS attended, felt like the perfect occasion to prepare a special retail review to give you a glimpse of what’s happening in New York retail, including comments and pictures for your review.

Are brands still innovating in New York, the city once seen as the retail mecca? What are the most interesting stores to visit? While Covid has had a major effect on retail everywhere, what are the impacts of the pandemic in New York?

Great and immersive experiences

Fashion and beauty

Gucci in Soho, is an immersive and impressive store that comes off as ultra-luxe and ultra-cool at the same time. On the second-hand side of luxury, TheRealReal Soho store is also impressive, thanks to staff competence, product curation, and a feeling of being in a “real” luxury multi-brand store with perfect presentation. It seems the concept is a success as it was one of the most crowded locations, with people buying and not just browsing. Interestingly, the store staff focuses on inviting customers to sell their belongings more so than to return for another purchase. LVMH recently invested in Aimé Leon Dore, the new cool kids brand. The store, perfectly located in Nolita, includes a café and a terrace outside. The store is usually crowded, giving off a great impression, and looks like a mix between Ralph Lauren and rap lifestyle. On the beauty side, Ulta in the Upper East Side feels very bright compared to Sephora thanks to the all-white atmosphere. More importantly, the perception is more immersive than Sephora, as Ulta provides a full beauty appliances section and a beauty salon.

Sports goods 

Nike stores are all about experience. Nike studio was closed however, both Nike midtown House of Innovation and Flatiron locations were extremely crowded with waiting lines filled with local shoppers willing to buy full price goods. Overall, the staff was welcoming, polite and competent. At the REI store in Soho, although the impression is quite messy due to click & collect, the immersion feeling is very strong.

Tech and home goods

The Google store in Chelsea is also immersive and almost better than Apple in terms of experience and comfort. The organisation of their cabins to experience products is effective. Bed Bath & Beyond offers another kind of immersion, with a great revamping in the home goods area, including large and clear sections and alleys, easy circulation, a huge space allocated to cash registers and click & collect areas. It is great but one can wonder if the trimming process was a bit too radical as it seems there was less inventory and choice than before.

Kids

Camp store near Union Square is impressive with a playground located in a hidden location behind the counter. This store is also an inspiration in terms of VM in the kids’ sections. The “kid’s shopping” initiative where kids are given fictitious money to make purchases (with a set limit by parents, charged at the end) is very intelligent.

Other concepts

Because of its size, Neighborhood Goods in Chelsea is more of a concept store than a “department store”. The curation of local brands and price point is very effective, attracting the right customers and a nice coffee shop completes the offer. Shopify store in Soho is an interesting marketing space for the brand. The welcome and service are great however, retail is a real job: which includes maintaining stores in perfect condition, and this is not Shopify’s top competence.

Retail disappointments

Fashion

Kith store in Nolita is well merchandised and even though visitors were buying high price tags, the women’s selection is quite disappointing and overall the store is not impressive. In Soho, Galeria Melissa‘s immersive environment and window set up are impressive but the store was either closed or empty, with sales associates looking at her phones and standing in the middle of the entrance… The Webster was impossible to visit as it was partially closed most of the time. The surroundings look terrible and the building itself is under renovation.

Sports goods

On Running store in Nolita is attempting artificial “coolness” by asking customers to line up and wait for the next available sales associate… who are just chatting together in the back of the store. Once in the store, there are good display ideas (shoe storage drawers) and the number of people on the street wearing On Running shoes was quite impressive. Although greeted with a warm good welcome at the Allbirds store in Nolita, there was no real follow up once inside. Customer education on sustainability was visible, although nothing compared to what Green Pea in Torino does for instance.

Tech

B8ta “Retail as a service” store in Hudson Yards is a showroom demonstrating and selling tech and lifestyle brands. It may have an interesting business model and help people find novel items however, people in the store are more looking than buying, which questions the efficiency of such a concept./nbsp]

Another concept

Even with an interesting brand curation, Showfields was an odd experience. The store does not really reflect the missions the concept intends to represent (vegan, sustainable, women-led…), the sales associates were too pushy, the store was empty, the Magic Wand feature did not work and overall, the store lacks cleanliness.

What about department stores?

New Nordstrom Men’s and Women’s stores near Columbus Circle were by far the most impressive out of all of the visits. Their flexible format and fixtures allow them to change layouts throughout floors without taking a toll on brands’ presentation and desirability (though, sometimes a bit odd with luxury brands). During Christmas, there was a great gifting assortment and wrapping services. Overall, the product presentation was good during sales. In the Men’s store, the “floating” cash registers (right in the middle and designed more as stations, not booths) are interesting, as well as the way click /amp] collect is nicely displayed and even used as a feature visible from the outside. In the Women’s store, the ground floor is energetic, airy, and combines a great cosmetic section with the feeling of a concept store. The ground floor area dedicated to home products offers great product curation, which contributes to the concept store impression.

Nordstrom Local is conveniently located, well attended and had many customers at the time of the visit. The way the services are displayed and visible (as proof of competence) is interesting. The store also sells a very limited number of items (snacks, small items & accessories) though not enough to sustain the store itself. The staff was great and competent.

Saks Fifth Avenue’s ground floor is great and impressive, with the escalators going down to the fine jewellery section and overall, spacious, modern and bright. The rather simple idea of colourful escalator “wrapping” really inspires customers to visit the upper floors. Traffic was slow and SaksWorks on the last floor was closed. The Barney’s floor is a gimmick with no added value.

As usual, Bergdorf Goodman had great Christmas windows and displays, but the impression was not so positive. During Christmas they offered “presales”: customers were charged at the time and were to receive the product at a discounted price later. The 7th floor which used to feature stationery is now dedicated to BG merchandised products. The traffic is low, apart from the shoe floor.

Bloomingdales in the Upper East Side feels a bit old. Still, the store offered a gift-wrapping service with customised-printed gifting paper in partnership with Klarna. The new Men’s shoe floor is not revolutionary but nice, with brand corners and multi-brand areas organised by style/functions (sport and sneakers, casual and weekend, classic and work shoes). Service counters are emphasized.

Macy’s in Herald Square feels old and not well maintained (floor maps are not all correct), however it was overall busy. The home floor has been redesigned with a lifestyle approach. On the ground floor, there is an interesting mix of cosmetics, tech (including Apple) and light travel goods.

Is New York still worth a retail trip? While there are always interesting stores to visit, the city didn’t feel the same as before due to the lack of traffic and energy, even if it was a bit busier during the holidays. The impact of Covid on retail was felt in all areas. It was particularly visible on Broadway around Macy’s, with closed flagships (Victoria’s Secret and empty >500 sqm locations) and even more so in Soho, in the Mercer St. / Greene St. area where there are many “available” retail locations advertised. The slow traffic is both due to the heavy travel restrictions and to the local affluent consumers relocating in their secondary residences. For instance, it led Bergdorf Goodman to achieve a fair share of business by sending trucks every day with goods to the Hamptons and other locations in 2021.

Another common feeling from two separate visits was the impact of staff shortage (Macy’s advertises for recruitment on zones and screens normally dedicated to products) leading to a feeling of poor maintenance (Visual Merchandising, product visibility, overall maintenance and attention to details, even cleanliness) and poor customer service (among department stores only Nordstrom sales staff gave a sense of welcome and product-related competence). During Christmas week, there was a striking contrast between stores that were either fully closed (Mejuri in Nolita, Melissa Galeria in Soho), partially closed (The Webster, On Running) and the ones that were inaccessible due to long queues at the entrance (Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel, Nike…).

Credits: IADS (Christine Montard)

Check out the retail review in pictures here