We saw the warnings as early as August when retailers started stocking shelves with candy, costumes, decorations, and all things pumpkin-flavored: summer has passed, and it is now officially the Halloween spending season. As a longtime resident of Salem Massachusetts, one of the top tourist destinations in the U.S. for all things Halloween, I have […]
With much of the consumer retail sector reporting first quarter earnings results over the last two weeks, most announcements reinforced the general gloom that has settled over the space since last year. Inflation, jitters about regional banks, and, most recently, tensions over the raising of the debt ceiling have all weighed on consumer confidence and […]
Last week, millions of American couples celebrated Valentine’s Day – and with them, so too did a large number of businesses whose products and services help make the holiday happen. Data on how much consumers spent isn’t publicly available yet, but the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) projections leading up to Valentine’s Day was for spending […]
Simon Property Group CEO David Simon predicted a “major comeback” for suburban retail coming out of the pandemic on his company’s fourth-quarter conference call earlier this month. “With all of the urbanization that was predicted two or three years ago, the question was, ‘Why are the suburbs going to exist if everybody is going to […]