Some retailers, like Aritzia, survived early pandemic closures, but some did not. Credit: istock/ Margarita-Young

What’s new or upcoming in the retail market? Andrea Fletcher, RI, of Lee & Associates provides a snapshot.

• Penguin Pickup is a retail outlet for the online shopper to pick up their goods in a secure environment, offering a free, convenient one-stop pickup for consumer purchases. The Vancouver market is on Penguin Pickup’s radar as the company seeks locations in high-density neighborhoods.
• Amazon wants to expand into the bricks and mortar of retailing. Their large capital investment will provide the capacity to develop their new vision of retailing.
• A notable new retail cluster has emerged in the ethnic grocery chain category. It’s a natural evolution of the insatiable West Coast appetite for specialty at-home dinners and includes the likes of Fujiya, Hannam Supermarket, H-Mart, Bosa Foods, Sabzi Mandi, Cioffi’s, Galloway’s, and Sungiven Foods. Now add Persia Foods, which has both a larger format grocery store and a new restaurant taking over the former Boston Pizza on Marine Drive in North Vancouver.
• The food hall is a relatively new phenomenon in Canada attracting the culinary foodie. Vancouver will soon have its own food hall concept occupying 26,000 square feet of the 185,000-square-foot retail footprint in Quadreal’s The Post on West Georgia Street, providing a unique and festive culinary experience. One operator will be running the entire 26,000 square feet of various food offerings.
• The revitalization of the suburban mall will introduce a new shopping experience to the mall shopper. The Amazing Brentwood in Burnaby is approximately 90% leased with tenants open for business to entice the returning customer. Lansdowne Centre Mall in Richmond will be one of the largest redevelopment projects: 50 acres along No. 3 Road will soon be a community where people will live, work, and play while enjoying a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and services, surrounded by 22 residential towers plus two office towers.
• Also in malls, pop-up stores or flash retailing is a growing movement that takes advantage of faddish trends and provides physical access for the entrepreneur to test the consumer response to their product or service. The pop-up store may be an ideal platform to migrate into a permanent brick-and-mortar location. Today, landlords see the benefit of a pop-up business as an opportunity to add to the mall’s retail mix as well as occupy vacant space in the development.

Download Fall 2021

Read more about the Vancouver retail market in “Vancouver Retail Market Update” in the Fall 2021 edition of Input. Download Fall 2021

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