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Customers are constantly being offered more opportunities and methods for consumption, both online and offline. Every retailer has to recognize and follow this trend in order to avoid losing out to the competition. We must find a combination of e-commerce, mobile apps or social media, and traditional retail stores. Today’s end consumers are digitally networked at all times and around 63% of buyers use devices like mobile phones and tablets to learn about products in advance or to buy them online.

These days, there has been a large debate about the crises of the bricks-and-mortar trade and the threat from e-commerce.

New projects always involve necessary preparations: We investigate which cities might make sense for us and our customers, look at purchasing power, traffic, development, and infrastructure plans for each region, etc., and define the most appropriate place for a potential retail or logistics property on the basis of the parameters analyzed.

Not a day goes by in which we aren’t warned by crystal-ball-gazing apologists of every type about the demise of over-the-counter retail in general and of shopping centers in particular. Our only experiences of the world will be virtual ones or – at the very least – we will produce everything at home on our own 3-D printers.

The physical store no longer holds a virtual monopoly on retail transactions. Consumers can now shop anytime, anywhere, and are not bound by opening hours or physical proximity.

Designer outlets have been one of the most widely misunderstood, but strongest performing, real estate sectors in Europe over the past decade. The strong consumer demand for the outlet sector is reflected in the high levels of footfall, extensive catchment areas, and strong sales densities. In turn, strong occupier demand accounts for very high occupancy rates across quality outlets: Tier 1 assets have an average vacancy rate of just 2%.

A critical evaluation of the centers which have been added to the European market in recent years prompts the following sobering conclusions: Professionalism in design, construction and operation has generally reached a very high level.

As the retail and shopping center climate continues to heat up across Europe and ongoing investment strongly suggests that the future looks promising, it is vital that we remain clear on what it is that really drives our market: the people within it.