Understanding the Pendulum Effect is crucial for retailers in order to anticipate and adapt to shifts in demand.
Bland uniformity, and sterile environments, has lead to plummeting community engagement and decreased customer loyalty.
The key is provide something customers cant obtain online, an engaging, memorable, and personal shopping experience!
Read MoreSuburban Shopping Strips are in serious trouble and facing potential armageddon! What made them popular and attracted customers, has been eroded over time.
Customers are looking for a different experience, something the Suburban Shopping Centre is able to provide if approached the right way!
The solution won’t be found doing “more of the same” - it requires a different approach and creativity!
Read MoreIs Perth heading towards a Retail Apocalypse?
Customer preferences and behaviours have changed yet developers are providing more of the same.
Is Perth so radically different that we can ignore overseas trends – or are we blindly constructing our way to a ‘Retail Apocalypse’?
Avoiding a ‘Retail Apocalypse’ is about creating a destination and an experience that surprises and delights!
To avoid disaster soul needs to be injected back into the shopping experience!
Read MoreBuild it & They Will Come. ...or not
They design & then build the structures: the shopping centres, the retail stores etc. They fill them with counters, signs & stock. But they no longer give it a soul.
In fact, for decades, they have been systematically removing all trace of a soul in most of our retail centres and even in our C.B.D’s
With a very few exceptions (the Spring flower show in David Jones’ flagship store in Sydney for example) everything that gave our retail spaces a ‘feeling’ has been stripped away.
Read MoreYou want to do ...what?
This was the reaction of senior management when, many moons ago, I presented my concept for a fashion parade at a major ‘centre in Perth’s southern suburbs. In the end they gave me my head and let me run amok with their shopping centre. We blacked out all of the skylights so we could use full theatre lighting. We installed a major sound system that surrounded the audience and we turned on a major theatrical event!
Every single show was standing room only.
Read MoreAs a child I remember being taken into the city to “see the lights” of Christmas. I remember the enchantment of the animated Christmas windows at Boans Department store.
We drove the family car into the city, parked then got out and walked the streets of Perth. As a family. Imagine that!
Imagine that entire families would not only choose the central city as their preferred destination for such activity, but that they would actually get out of their cars to take in the wonder of it all!
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