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The San Francisco retreat
To:Brew Readers
Retail Brew // Morning Brew // Update
The state of retail in San Francisco.
April 11, 2024

Retail Brew

Listrak

Happy Thursday, everyone. With 99 Cents Only announcing its shutting down for good last week, it’s to be expected that the struggles of similar businesses models, like Family Dollar, will be under scrutiny, and some of the solutions will look familiar if you’ve been paying attention to our coverage.

In today’s edition:

—Katishi Maake, Alex Vuocolo, Ryan Barwick

STORES

If you’re going to San Francisco

A picture of the Golden Gate bridge against a mostly blue sky with a few white clouds Bloodua/Getty Images

It’s no secret that downtown San Francisco’s retail landscape is struggling.

Union Square, one of the city’s primary commercial hubs, has seen numerous retailers exit over the past few years. A short list includes Zara, The North Face, H&M, Gap, and Uniqlo. Barry DiRaimondo, CEO of commercial real estate developer SteelWave, didn’t underplay the struggles the city has faced but said it’s not entirely doom and gloom.

“A lot of the negative rhetoric surrounding San Francisco is probably a little bit more overblown than reality,” he told Retail Brew. “Having said that, I do think the retail industry, especially the high-end retail industry in San Francisco, has completely taken it on the chin.”

How’d we get here? San Francisco faced many of the same challenges other major cities’ retail districts faced during the pandemic. Work from home and office closures halted foot traffic, but in the case of San Francisco, more than four years later, DiRaimondo said its offices have not recovered, compared to other cities like New York.

Keep reading here.—KM

   

PRESENTED BY LISTRAK

Deliver a serotonin boost

Listrak

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Listrak can show you how it’s done. As retail’s leading customer engagement platform, they provide truly top-notch SMS and email marketing to more than 1k big-timers like Hunter Boots, Untuckit, and Le Creuset.

To help you crush it, they’ve put together the 2024 Cross-Channel Benchmark Report. This bad boy goes in on how to drive click-through rates, conversion rates, and rev by using email and SMS to deliver campaigns your customers actually wanna see.

Send your audience a message.

TECH

Nerd alert

A black Geek Squad van parks outside a Best Buy store. Sanfel/Getty Images

Best Buy is planning to deploy a generative AI-powered virtual assistant to provide customers with a “self-service option” on its website and app, or via the old-fashioned customer service call.

The electronics retailer is developing the technology in partnership with Google Cloud and Accenture, and plans to roll it out later this summer. The announcement comes amid reports that Best Buy is laying off employees of its Geek Squad subsidiary, which provides hands-on technology assistance to customers.

The new virtual assistant will help customers troubleshoot product issues, as well as more standard customer service inquiries such as rescheduling deliveries and managing customer subscriptions and memberships.

Best Buy joins a growing list of retailers embracing GenAI to help bolster their digital customer experience.

Keep reading here.—AV

   

MARKETING

Bring it Home

Home Depot storefront Sundry Photography/Getty Images

There’s sawdust on Madison Avenue. The Home Depot is giving its retail media network, first piloted in 2018, a renovation: Retail Media+ is now Orange Apron Media. Get the reference behind the new name? Great.

The idea behind the rebrand is to stand out in the ever-congested retail media landscape, Melanie Babcock, VP of Orange Apron Media and monetization at The Home Depot, told Marketing Brew.

Keep reading here on Marketing Brew.—RB

   

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SWAPPING SKUS

Today’s top retail reads.

Shots up: Step aside White Claw—brands are now banking on tequila-based drinks to pop off. (Modern Retail)

Pack it in: The school cafeteria version of Lunchables might be packing too much sodium into their dishes. (CNN)

Bulk up: Lidl and Aldi are growing their respective customer bases, but it’s not from where you might think. (Chain Store Age)

Drop a line: Your audience is waiting to hear from you. Let Listrak’s 2024 Cross-Channel Benchmark Report show you how to ace the SMS and email messaging game. Say hi.*

*A message from our sponsor.

JOBS

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NUMBERS GAME

The numbers you need to know.

A Piper and Sandler survey found that Nike is the most popular brand among teens for apparel and footwear, with On, Hoka, and New Balance gaining ground since last year.

But the average teenager has less to spend this year given that 6,020 respondents with an average age of 16 self-reported spending 6% less year over year, but 1% more than Piper’s survey last fall. But even that survey found teenagers spending 4% less YoY and 1% less from the previous survey in the spring of 2023.

“We are seeing some significant shifts in brand preferences including the rise of smaller, innovative brands which are taking share from incumbents,” Abbie Zvejnieks, senior research analyst at Piper Sandler, said in a statement. “We think social media has led to an accelerated trend cycle including an increased emphasis on key products, and brands will have to be nimble to keep up.”

Footwear is the go-to purchase for teenagers, although spending was down 1% YoY overall and spending for average income teens fell 3%, according to Piper. Upper-income teens upped their spending 5%.

  • Parent’s contributions to their kids spending remains on par with last year at 62%.
  • Almost 4 in 10 (38%) teenagers surveyed reported being employed part time.

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