Industy Headlines for Nov. 27th
Wall Street Journal, US
In a few weeks, Steven Swain will make his annual pilgrimage to New York from Rocky Mount, Va., to visit the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and see the holiday window displays at Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys New York. He’s also planning to bring back some prized souvenirs: the 2008 crop of holiday shopping bags …
Shopping malls are running on empty
Los Angeles Times, US
Life Plaza Center in San Gabriel used to teem with diners heading to Green Village, a Chinese restaurant in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped mall on Valley Boulevard. But after the eatery closed five months ago, the 7,500- square-foot space remained vacant. With no tenants stepping forward and fewer customers clogging the parking lot, the plaza is quiet, with a curiously dark core …
Wal-Mart commits to powering 360 Texas sites with wind
Washington Post, US
Wal-Mart has signed a contract to help power hundreds of its stores using wind energy, one of the largest investments in the field by a U.S. retailer …
Shopping Centre chain plans aid for retailers
The Australian, AU
The Christmas retail market will not be as dire as some predict, but retailers will need support after the January sales. AMP Capital Shopping Centres marketing director Stuart Langeveldt, who joined the large shopping centre operator four weeks ago, said the company would remake its marketing strategy in the new year in a bid to keep the flow of shoppers into its malls in February, March and April …
What Web 3.0 can do for marketers
Advertising Age
t’s been nearly 10 years since Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the worldwide web, expressed his vision of a “semantic web,” in which all web data — and the meaning of that data — could be read by machines. Since then, much of the slow-moving progress toward this smarter and more powerful web has been courtesy of academics and data librarians …
Pop-up store for teens doesn’t sell a thing
Springwise
Yes, we know you know the pop-up retail trend has been around for years now, but Teen Vogue magazine is bringing its own twist to the concept, with a space that doesn’t sell a thing. Instead, visitors will be able to try on items from the racks of clothes on display, receive advice from stylists and sample products from the perfume bar or make-up station. Free snacks and gift-wrapping will also be offered, along with access to charging stations for cell phones and iPods …
Tim Walker bids a bittersweet farewell to Woolworths
The Independent, UK
On a lonely shelf at the back of an understocked store in a south-east London shopping centre, a big, blonde, half-price teddy bear sits staring glumly at his paws. “Is this what it’s come to?,” he seems to be asking himself. Just shy of its centenary year, in the last month before Christmas – when business ought to be booming –Woolworths, the poor bear’s employer, is going out of business altogether …
