According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago is becoming the first city in retail testing as merchants including Best Buy Co., Gap Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp are trying out everything from store formats to sales concepts in the Windy City first.
And attendees to the VM+SD International Retail Design Conference next month can witness Chicago’s bustling retail scene during the conference, which runs September 21 to 23 at the Fairmont Hotel.
As reported in the Tribune, Gap will roll out four of its first five Forth & Towne stores, its new chain for women 35 and older, at Chicago-area malls beginning on August 31. In using Chicago residents for early feedback on its fourth chain, Gap joins about half a dozen other retailers who have tested not-yet-ready-for-prime-time ideas here in recent years.
“Chicago accurately reflects the pulse of what is currently going on in U.S. culture,” said Cheryl Swanson, principal for New York brand strategy consultant Toniq LLC. “It's a sophisticated market, yet mainstream.”
Costco chose the Windy City to test the sale of caskets at three area stores, while purse retailer Misako opened its first U.S. store in Chicago. Meanwhile, electronics giant Best Buy chose Naperville last September to roll out its Studio D electronics store, a teaching-oriented format for middle- to upper-income women. Best Buy liked Naperville's female demographics and the doubling of the city's population since 1993. It also considered Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas and California.
“Chicago is a microcosm of America,” said Ed Keller, client director for the Chicago office of brand consultants Landor Associates. “It has a large ethnic population. You can find fashionista types and typical suburban soccer moms.”
The latter in particular appealed to Forth & Towne. “We chose Chicago for a few reasons,” said Forth & Towne president Gary Muto. “Most importantly, there's a high concentration of our target customer that lives in Chicago.”
Forth & Towne will open the first of its test stores August 24 in a New York suburb, followed by four Chicago store openings, located in Westfield Old Orchard, Woodfield Mall, Westfield Fox Valley and Algonquin Commons.
To learn more about IRDC or to register, log on to IRDC.