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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2002
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TAUBMAN WEB SITES A HIT
Taubman Centers, which operates a Web site for each of its 30 malls, had attracted 350,000 registered users by the end of last year, providing them news about sales and other promotions at their favorite retailers, the company reports. The sites also saw 800,000 unique daily users for the last quarter of 2001.Taubman enrolled consumers living close to the malls through a variety of targeted promotions, including a deal with America Online. When AOL users living near a Taubman mall log on, pop-up ads appear on their screens with links to the center. “The tenants are seeing for the first time a mall company that is promoting them on an individual basis,” Carol Gief, Taubman’s vice president for marketing and center planning, told SCT.
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FOOD FIGHTOnline food shopping in the United States took a breather after the collapses of HomeGrocer, Peapod, Webvan and other high-profile startups, but it’s showing signs of revival. Safeway and Albertson’s are both poised to go head-to-head in Portland, Ore.; Safeway began serving customers there in January, and Albertson’s arrived in March. San Francisco will likely be the next battleground: Safeway has begun operations there, and Albertson’s says it plans to follow in the near future. Unlike their dead dot-com predecessors, both serve customers from their stores, not from flashy, high-tech — i.e., expensive — warehouses. |
ONLINE SHOPPERS GETTING POORER: HOORAY!
Tomorrow’s average online shopper will be poorer and older — and that’s good news, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a New York City-based technology analysis company. Currently young and affluent, most online shoppers in the next five years will be over 35 and from households making between $30,000 and $75,000. Shoppers 50 and older make up only 16 percent of the online population, but that will increase to 30 percent in five years. So what’s so good about that? This is all the result of a projected doubling of the online population in the United States, from the current 66 million to 132 million by 2006. “Retailers that sell to the mass market stand to gain,” explained Ken Cassar, senior analyst at Jupiter.
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MOST SATISFACTORY
Online retailers scored higher than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts in the most recent quarterly American Customer Satisfaction index, compiled by the University of Michigan’s business school. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com topped the list with scores of 84 (out of 100) and 82, respectively. Among physical stores, Sam’s Club (78), Target (77) and Nordstrom (76) scored highest.
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SCOWL FOR THE CAMERAIt looked too good to be true when, for just a few hours, Kodak offered a £329 ($468) digital camera for £100 on its U.K. Web site. And it was. But by the time the company realized its mistake, thousands of orders had poured in, the Financial Times (London) reports. Initially, the company declined to fulfill the orders, prompting protests, the creation of an unflattering Web site and a threatened lawsuit. Days later the company reversed itself and supplied the cameras, swallowing a $2.8 million loss. |
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TAXMAN’S REVENGE
West Virginia, which like other states has lost sales tax revenues to online shopping in recent years, is working on a novel way to hit back: state-financed retail development. State legislators were working on a plan at press time that would provide millions of dollars to finance the construction of an outlet mall in the city of Wheeling, through tax-increment financing and/or lottery funds. Sales tax collections have been flat in the past five years, and many blame online shopping, from which no tax revenues are collected.Shopping Centers Today
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