The New Epicenter of Retailing

Epicenter, a new mall complex based on a pre-Internet shopping try-before-you-buy concept, will open near the end of 2006 at the Polaris Fashion Place (Columbus, Ohio).

The nucleus of Epicenter will consist of two parts — the Buypod, a hand-held electronic device, and electronic kiosks located throughout the mall. Under the concept, customers will enter the mall and register their credit card information, which will then be put into their Buypods. As customers browse merchandise, they can use their Buypod (which, as the name suggests, looks something like an Apple iPod) to scan the labels of items they want to buy.

Although a small number of items will available to take home, most orders will be sent directly to the warehouse, where they will be filled and shipped. The electronic kiosks will print receipts and can be used to cancel orders, if needed.

Internet and catalogue retailers can use Epicenter to establish a place where their customers can feel, and in some cases try on, merchandise, according to Anthony Lee, Epicenter’s ceo. The Epicenter design also offers the low overhead and reduced need for sales staff that online and catalogue retailers are accustomed to.

The names of the retailers who had signed up for Epicenter were not yet available.

Sheldon Gordon, chairman of Gordon Group Holdings LLC (Greenwich, Conn.), which developed the mall, told The New York Times that he saw Epicenter as “a merger of Internet capabilities with traditional retailing.” “I started to realize that department stores were going out of business and merging, and a lot of space is becoming available,” he said.

Gordon says that malls like Epicenter are the future of retailing and that his company has plans to open 10 more across the United States, and to expand internationally. Gordon Group has also developed The Forum Shops at Caesars, The Shops at Mohegan Sun, San Francisco Center and The Pier at Caesars.