The 15min city – the new frontier in retailing

However, what we are seeing out of the US, takes this experience to another level. Combining local, indoor and outdoor environments (not just your traditional mall), along with multiple hotels and living options at its fingertips.

These retailing centers – or towns - are truly allowing people to completely embrace the concept of the ‘15min city’.

Research out of WD Partners, who presented at the NRF 2022, highlighted two major insights that will continue to influence the consumer trend to shop local. Firstly, the continued growth of digital and online transactions. While the pandemic certainly accelerated this trend, 68% of consumers will continue to prefer online shopping moving forward.

Secondly, all sectors envisage more regular and flexible work from home arrangements, with 100% of respondents expecting to not go back into the office full time again. Instead, the consensus is that it will move to a 50:50 work vs WFH split.

So, what does this mean? Well, the overall impact of these two insights is the continued consumer choice to shop local. With 37% of responders choosing local retail, compared to only 11% saying they would choose an indoor mall.

We visited Easton Town in Columbus Ohio, which is a living example of the immersive customer experience, with local indoor and outdoor shops, entertainment, hotels and living options. It is clear that this consumer choice to shop local, and not at your traditional malls, has accelerated with the pandemic and WFH reality.

After our visit to Easton Town, we continued up to New Hampshire, north of Boston, to see the development of another immersive retailing experience -Tuscan Village. Based on the same concept as Easton Town and still in its early stages, we could clearly see consumers positively embracing this local, indoor-outdoor experience.

While some of the largest retailers may have been strategically quiet about this shift to local at the NRF, the reality is very different. Both Nordstrom and Target have started doing local stores, to service customers in bigger cities like New York.

Nordstrom Local stores act as an online collection point, where customers are able to collect online orders locally, without having to go to the major retailing outlet – supporting both the preference in online shopping, but with a focus on local.

Local Target stores continue to have a limited range but provide the consumer with the ability to literally ‘pop down the road’ to collect something.

Clearly consumers are preferring to live, shop and work all in one place, and Australian retailers are not immune to these changing preferences. The smart retailers will be thinking about how they ensure a local presence and be a part of ‘15min city’, and not to be left on the fringes.