VIEWPOINT
Things to Thoughts In the past 20 years, a monumental shift has occurred
in the marketplace: Instead of just buying things, people are investing in thoughts. The materialism of the 20th century has been replaced by the desire for fulfillment in the 21st century. Ushered in by the Internet (begun in the 1970s), the personal computer (in the 1990s), and mobile computing (in the current decade), each generation has experienced a profound jump in the ability to acquire information, knowledge and wisdom from the entire world. Whereas retail has always represented symbols and products of distant civilizations and cultures that were brought to the customer, now the consumer can experience these distant societies and their cultural anthropological uniqueness in one’s local shopping district. The things that define our lives become symbols with
meaning rather than products devoid of content. Shopping is social only if it has meaning. Only by understanding that society must be empowered, as much as the individual, will the marketplace rise above its virtual counterpart. Instead of just consuming, individuals become citizens.
Citizens vs. Consumers “Do we want to be citizens or customers?" was the
headline for an interview with the influential architectural historian and critic Joseph Rykwert.1 It was an enlightened, but damning, question, and the answer has profound implications for how landlords and tenants relate to customers. There is a physical world for “consumers” who do
nothing but devour merchandise and services without returning anything. And there is a physical world for “citizens” who offer something back to society, not the least of which is their patronage, loyalty, mentoring and leadership. Thinking of customers as citizens and citizens as
customers suggests that they are one and the same— contrary to some beliefs. This means empowering customers as citizens and guests, instead of containing them. On the other hand, treating customers as less than guests and more like commodities will, in time, be seen as a new form of entrapment—or, at the very least, as a restraint on their options. Controlling their spending, limiting their options, disregarding their desires, preventing their growth: All of these actions are part of a limiting, not a liberating, experience. Yet retailers who understand that their responsibility is to empower
customers shall discover their consumers will return this care and consideration with loyalty. Increasingly, commodity purchases are being relegated to the virtual world, but enrichment and empowerment will always be part of the physical world. When marketplaces allow the human spirit to flourish, then citizens shall fill our streets and stores.
Strategy vs. Tragedy of the Commons Garrett Hardin’s classic commentary on the “depletion
of shared resources” by greed and self-aggrandizement2 should be heeded as a warning about the character of shopping districts. What happens when greed overtakes civic experiences? In the case of the original essay, growth of the town without growth of new public markets and civic squares destroyed the buoyancy of trade, and saturation of over-use devastated the public domain as a place of trade. In the contemporary environment, the public domain has become more and more inconvenient, anonymous and inhospitable. These are terrible omens for the marketplace. If the public spaces become marginalized while retail
sales increases, customers increasingly will resent retailers for making their time and money seem less and less valuable, and over time that business will be lost. Why would anyone not revert to online spending if the quality of the retail visit becomes predictable, tedious or unfulfilling? While it is possible to leave routine purchases to the
virtual world, consumers generally are reluctant to give up on sensory and social encounters. As retail learns to host more of these experiences, so, too, it shall benefit by more footfall and partnerships with its customers.
Intersections Create Opportunities Retail partnerships with complementary uses are the
hallmark of new marketplaces. Integrating shopping and eating—the two drivers of life in the streets—with cultural, leisure, entertainment, recreation, amusement, commercial, residential and education will drive footfall beyond expectations, as seen in Figure 8-2. Stores must be configured to meet customer needs
throughout the day and evening, not just during sporadic shopping interludes. Only then will there be a true and lasting intersection between the lives of the consumer and the marketplace.
Re-Imagine Links A network is another analytical framework for
1 Matthew Knight, "Do We Want to be Citizens or Customers?" (interview with Joseph Rykwert), Principal Voices, CNN, June 12, 2008, retrieved
April 11, 2013). 2 Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, Vol. 162 (No. 3859), December 13, 1968, pp. 1243-1248, and Ian Angus, “The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons,” MRZine, August 25, 2008, both retrieved April 10, 2013.
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF SHOPPING CENTERS 41 3 RETAIL PROPERTY INSIGHTS VOL. 20, NO. 1, 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45