The Fall of Retail Mall Tenants - A Fascinating Graphic!
I came across this outstanding graphic in the New York Times today created by the design company Leftloft. The graphic illustrates a fictitious shopping mall and shows graphically what has happened to retail sales of major mall retailers compared from the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. I think some of the results are not surprising, but some are..especially Walmart. Food generally (but not always) did well. People eat mall junk food when they are depressed!
So who were the big losers?
Saks -28.7% (And Saks is coming to Ridge Hill in Yonkers, Hmmm…)
Abercombie & Fitch -23.5%
Build-a-Bear Workshop -21.4% (who is building bears when you have to put food on the table?)
The Winners:
CVS +9.7% (Prozac & Prilosec!)
Family Dollar +8.7%
Cinemark +6.2%
Kohl’s and Costco basically held their own, which should be expected as discounters always do better in a recession. I was surprised that Walmart declined. Perhaps their pricing is not as low as they say? Food generally did well, except that McDonalds dropped 9.6%, and Burger King was UP 1%. What is up with that?
Retail malls as a whole are not doing that well in this economy, except for the discounters. Factory outlets are also blazing. I was at Woodbury Commons over the holiday weekend, and I was very happy to get there when they opened. Besides the amazing sales, people were carrying armloads of discounted goods to their cars. So there is life in the world of discounts!
Spend that stimulus money!
