This episode of The New World of Consumer Behavior features an interview with Tama Shor, President of the Directory of Major Malls/ShoppingCenters.com, and Keith Seard, Director of Business Operations & Strategy at B. I. Spatial. The Directory of Major Malls is the leading source of detailed information on the major shopping centers and malls throughout the US and Canada. B. I. Spatial brings 30+ years of expertise in the spatial Business Intelligence arena and nearly a decade within the Mobile Analytics arena across a variety of industry segments including retail, restaurants, grocery, banking, education, and hospitality. In this episode, Tama reveals the key to organically sourcing retail properties for more than 35 years and discusses how shopping centers have changed and are continuing to do so over time. Meanwhile, Keith discusses why personalization is important for customer growth and retention, the do’s and don’ts with data, and the future of retail.
This episode of The New World of Consumer Behavior features an interview with Tama Shor, President of the Directory of Major Malls/ShoppingCenters.com, and Keith Seard, Director of Business Operations & Strategy at B. I. Spatial.
Tama is the head of the leading source of detailed information on the major shopping centers and malls throughout the US and Canada. Her specialties include major shopping centers and retail research, industry trends, and data integration.
Keith is a seasoned financial and real estate strategist knowledgeable on retail pricing and real estate. With process and systems acumen he designs financial models, structures for individuals, families and developing organizations operating in the private, public and non-profit sectors.
In this episode, Tama reveals the key to organically sourcing retail properties for more than 35 years and discusses how shopping centers have changed and are continuing to do so over time. Meanwhile, Keith discusses why personalization is important for customer growth and retention, the do’s and don’ts with data, and the future of retail.
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Key Quotes
“When we talk about properties being acquired, again many of these companies are publicly held companies, so that affects what goes on with the valuation of the stock prices when they sell portfolios or they buy portfolios. Same thing when there's massive changes with regard to specific tenants, how does that affect when JC Penney closes X numbers of stores? How does that trickle down to all those landlords who have JC Penney as an anchor store in their property? So, again, it's all intertwined. It's not just who owns it or who’s managing it. One move shifts so many different areas, it's like the domino effect.” - Tama Shor
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Episode Timestamps
02:14 Introducing Tama Shor
02:50 Introducing Keith Seard
06:12 Observing shifts in consumer behavior
10:58 Making pivots due to the pandemic
13:41 Organically sourcing properties for over 35 years
21:23 Diving into the Directory of Major Malls
25:59 How shopping centers are changing
35:22 Customer data stories
39:10 Personalization for customers
45:03 Data dos and don’ts
48:15 The future of retail
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Links
Connect with Keith on LinkedIn
Kat Harwood: Hello and welcome to The New World of Consumer Behavior: Lessons From Data Pioneers. I'm your host, Kat Harwood, Director of Corporate Communications at Near. This episode features a conversation with Tama Shor, President of The Directory of Major Malls and shoppingcenters.com, and Keith Seard Director of Business Operations and Strategy at B.I. Spatial.
Tama runs the leading source of detailed information on major shopping centers and malls throughout the US and Canada. Keith is a seasoned financial strategist, knowledgeable on retail pricing and real estate. In this episode, Tama and Keith talk about navigating over 35 years of commercial real estate, why personalization is a key factor for customer growth, and how shopping centers have had to evolve to keep up with online stores.
But first, here's a quick word from our sponsor.
Sponsor: Imagine what your company could do with one of the world's largest vaults of intelligence on consumers. The possibilities for business efficiency are endless across people, places, and products, across retail, restaurants, tech and tourism data is the key to unlocking insights and drive results for your business.
Near is the global SaaS leader in privacy led data intelligence with 1.6 billion data points worldwide. Go to near.com to learn how Near can help your business make better decisions.
Kat Harwood: Now, please enjoy this interview with Tama Shor, President of The Directory of Major Malls and shoppingcenters.com, and Keith Seard, Director of Business Operations and Strategy at B.I. Spatial.
Tama and Keith, it's so great to have you both here on the show today. The three of us have had the pleasure of meeting a few months ago now, I think it is. So I'm super excited to find out what's sort of been going on since we last spoke. So let's kick it off with the basics. Tama, if you could tell us your name, what you do, sort of day to day, and then how you and Keith work together. And then Keith will kick it over.
[00:02:15] Tama Shor: Well, I, uh, Tama Shor, Directory of Major Malls, shoppingcenters.com, I oversee everything with the business regularly. My big focus is really on business development, building partnerships and marketing, aside from just regular overall organization of the company and Keith has worked with us, worked with me specifically for several decades now as a, uh, strategic advisor on, uh, all things shoppingcenters.com and Directory of Major Malls.
[00:02:46] Kat Harwood: Very cool. That's a very long relationship there. It's
[00:02:49] Keith Seard: awesome. Yes, absolutely. Well, I'm Keith Seard. I am the owner of Kinetic Business Solutions, and as Tama had mentioned, I have been working with her for quite some time, probably, [00:03:00] ooh, 30 years, almost if we're, if we wanna go back to pick a date. But my primary focus is business development and strategic advisory services. What I do primarily is work with Tama on licensing agreements in regards to data coming up with new uses, pricing and models that would help people absorb the data and actually help grow their business as well. So
[00:03:25] Kat Harwood: Nice. You know, when you find partners within the industry that you can really work so seamlessly with, so that's awesome. Like you both. Okay, so as you both know here at Near, we use data to really help companies like yours develop business strategies and truly grow and scale, which we'll discuss more in depthly in our interview later on with some use cases, which I know you have. But first, if you could tell me briefly, Tamma, how your teams are currently using data in general, and how you're using data to better understand the behavior of your consumers.
[00:03:56] Tama Shor: We're all about data. That's pretty much, [00:04:00] we are a data company. That's our focus with regard to maintaining up to date, uh, information on the major shopping centers and malls throughout the US and Canada. So as part of that, a lot of our data is organically researched by our team here. We do get information directly from landlords and other people involved in the properties, and then additionally we have other resources that we use.
Dive deeper and build on that data such as the near data where we've brought that in and included doing an analysis around each of the shopping centers and coming up with what's going on in terms of the volume of visitor traffic at the center and and near data. Plays a big role with that.
Additionally, we've overlaid segmentation data and more enhanced demographics, and that's through our partner at Clara tos with their, their prism segmentation. So all of that means that we have so much more that we can understand about what goes on [00:05:00] at the properties beyond just, here's the shopping center.
These are the. This is the available space there. Now we can understand the volume of foot traffic at a property. We can do more of an analysis about where those people potentially are coming from, what sort of volume do we have in tourist traffic, and then also analyze who these people are in terms of their own shopping habits and what sort of categories they fall.
[00:05:26] Keith Seard: What we've also done just over time, being in business over 30 years, you know, everybody's needs have evolved, just like society's evolved. And while we're focused on, you know, major shopping centers across the United States and Canada. People are, the pandemic has brought on a lot of shifts for us to actually create more uses for the data and actually even answer questions about from industries or partners that may not necessarily be directly working with shopping centers, but use that as a measure for other types of analytics or, uh, [00:06:00] strategic.
[00:06:01] Kat Harwood: Yeah, I mean, you bring up a good point. The pandemic, the last two and a half years have been such a rollercoaster for so many people in businesses and in the retail and real estate world. So, you know, if you could sort of dig deeper, what are some of the most significant shifts you've seen in consumer behavior in the last two years, and how has it really impacted
[00:06:22] Tama Shor: your.
Well, for one thing, I mean, so many properties and individual retail stores were pretty much shut down as of, you know, March, 2020 into April in certain parts of the country. Others opened up sooner than others. So that in itself affected many of the properties and retailers that were listing, which of course then would affect the people that own those properties.
And the retailers are leasing space, the services at those centers. So it was a big impact in terms of. Um, what it did to the retail industry as a whole for us. We continued to maintain our information, keep our research [00:07:00] going, keep our people employed throughout that period because we of course, knew that when we came out on the other side, everyone needed to know what was going on.
And with regard to how that has affected the industry itself, well, the work from home and the hybrid type of work environment has certainly affected people's. They're not going into the office five days a week. If they're going in at all. They're going in several days a week. Maybe they've relocated someplace else.
So all of that affects maybe the goods and services and restaurants that they go to. They're not stopping for coffee at Starbucks five days a week because they're only going to the office one day a week. Even. One of the things I point out. That somebody might grocery shop at the end of the day at the grocery store near their office, and now they're working from home.
So it's easier on a Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock to pop over to the grocery store, and maybe now they're going to a different grocery store. So all of that just, there's so many other variations of how people's habits have changed [00:08:00] and all of that really affects what's going on with the retail.
[00:08:03] Keith Seard: I think one of the, um, biggest things that I've seen in addition to that and probably a layer underneath of remote working people, not with the ability to work remotely.
We actually had a conversation a few weeks back with someone he said, we said, Where are you? He said, A Honduras. He goes, Oh. If they close the offices down, you know, I decided to go back to Honduras as long as I have internet, you know, and he's doing business in the US from Honduras. So that's part of remote working.
But what that has also done is changed the dynamics of all these different geographies that people knew for the last hundred years. We haven't had any incident like this in the last hundred years. So it's created an opportunity for organizations to. Refining their requests for information. So they're being more specific in organizations, being more efficient about how they're spending money on data, and they're looking [00:09:00] more for analytics and solutions as opposed to just data.
[00:09:05] Tama Shor: I also think that that's also how even, you know, again, bringing in the near data, it's so impactful because it's coming also at a time where people are more welcoming of what mobile traffic can tell them. You know, understanding it's no longer the feeling of smoke and mirrors that I think a number of years back when mobile data was first introduced, now the industry, many industries all understand how important it is to really have a.
Stick view of what goes on and not make certain assumptions. Old school demographic, trade area studies talked about radius rings and drive time, but that doesn't really tell you who's actually coming to a property. So now if you're able to identify who those people are, you can also now. Change what's happening at the center.
What's the configuration of the tenants? Understand that the people coming to those properties maybe need different [00:10:00] types of retail and services than what. You know, was happening at the center when it was first developed maybe 20, 30 years ago. So the markets around the properties have changed, and having information available to understand how that's changed means that those properties can make shifts so they can continue to be successful or give themselves a refresh to be successful.
If there was a dropdown in activity at the center and.
[00:10:29] Kat Harwood: Ta. It's just so interesting. I feel like you have so many retailers and tenants that rely on your data so heavily for decades, as you've said, and it just must have been a real mind blowing experience to go from kind of knowing what they need to.
All of a sudden, people aren't going into the office. Like you said, you know, people aren't going to Starbucks five days a week. It's just, I would think today, more than ever, the data. So important to have to keep your business going. So how have you had to pivot your business because of these
[00:10:59] Tama Shor: [00:11:00] shifts? For one thing, um, certainly bringing in, enhancing what we have available with regard to bringing in the overlays of, of the other data, the mobile data, the segmentation, the demographics, all of that allowed us to create a more comprehensive picture of those properties.
You know, which somebody looks at information in isolation, such as what are the numbers at a property, how many people are coming there? But then you don't know anything about the property, you're. In a vacuum, maybe there's a big drop in activity at a property because one of the anchors is closed, or two of the anchors is closed.
Maybe the property's undergoing a redevelopment. All of that is so important, and so we understand how important that is as it relates to our customers and the retailers that are using your information. Properties, developers that are building the centers as well as even the, um, environment around the shopping center itself.
As an example, [00:12:00] you have department stores have closed and we track the vacant anchors. So there's gonna be a shift at a property when suddenly there's acres of empty parking lot. What can happen to that? Who can move into that space now that it's not controlled by the anchor that's no longer there? The landlord has opportunity to.
Change the reconfigure the entire property or use some of that space to be out parcel space. We now have a big push towards more and more drive-through restaurants. Well, now that space is there for those drive-throughs to be created. Pivoting
[00:12:34] Keith Seard: from one space or one circumstance to another. It wasn't all external.
It was a lot of it was internal too. We had to think. Of course, being in this business a long time, we have to think about how do we do things differently? How do we reach out to people? Part of our uniqueness is that we try to stay in touch directly with the people that are providing these information.
People that are managing the center and have their finger on the [00:13:00] pulse. Of course, if you're an owner, you're gonna know what's coming and what's going, and then information gets shared with us through relationships. But having all of that too, and needing to. Externally for customers. You know, it creates an opportunity for us to partner with other companies like we did with Near and with Claraton, um, to bring more robust data to broaden the horizon of the data and to give it another dimension so that when people come for quick and easy access to information, they also have some answers to some questions that they may already have in their head, and maybe come up with a couple of ideas that they.
[00:13:38] Kat Harwood: Both of you had mentioned a lot about sources. Can you tell me a little bit about how many sources you started out having when your business first started 35 years ago, compared to how many sources you use today?
[00:13:52] Tama Shor: Well, yes. So 35 years ago, which was pretty much before the internet, before lots of things.
So we're going all the way [00:14:00] back to really, when we were a print publication, we had a big nine by 12 print book that was 2200 pages by the time we, we last published the, uh, 33rd edition of it. Going all the way back. Um, the only place to get information from was the landlord. What's helpful to us is that we built up these relationships through the years.
We have many that we have very long term relationships with, where they understand the value of providing their information to DMM so that what people are seeing about their properties. is accurate. You know, we're accurate with what we have. Additionally, we're tracking what's going on, if properties are being redeveloped or they have new centers that are being built.
So our source going all the way back was really just the landlord, the the developer themselves. And then from there we as. Things came to be where there was the internet to allow for more research to be done. So that allowed us to [00:15:00] find information about properties where maybe we didn't already have a contact with owners or there were companies that were not as cooperative.
Uh, and also allowed us to look for new developments, to include new retailers to start tracking. So in terms of other sources, we still don't bring in any third party data. Our data is. Our research team are vetting the information that comes into our system, and that is continually how we do it. We've certainly brought in some other techniques that make it easier or more efficient at times, but it's still, um, organically being researched.
And then of course, we do have the opportunity now to. The demographics that come in from our partners and use that so that we're providing actual activity, the demographic activity, rather than different sources where in the past, one developer might use one source for their demographics. Another uses, another one [00:16:00] talks about a three mile radius ring.
Another, it talked about a five mile radius ring, so you didn't have the same apples to apples comparison that now we're able to provide to every person, every company that's using our data, because it's consistent across the.
[00:16:13] Kat Harwood: Wow. That just really speaks to the beauty of technology and innovation. I can't imagine how much time you must have saved going from, you know, every landlord getting the information they have to just being able to pull the data.
I mean, how has it made your life easier?
[00:16:31] Tama Shor: Now you have to, Oh, I say it to my life easier. It's made things very complex. Because also, even just from the standpoint, if you think about coming from, uh, being a print publisher, you know, I, I used to have to worry about layouts and blueprints and things like that.
However, the magic of it is that, You can update something immediately so you have new information all the time, as opposed to anyone who's ever been in print understands you have production time. The minute something's printed, you know the joke is it's out of date, [00:17:00] which is not really true, but it does mean that we can be much quicker to also respond to changes.
So as an example, when there were a lot of mass tenant closings, That were announced, and this is pre pandemic. I'm not talking about the temporary closings that took place, but you know, some of the department stores, Macy's, JC Penney, to name a few. We were able to immediately go into our system and update those records, whether it be that we updated them, that the stores no longer.
Functioning that it's no longer open or that we knew that it was going to be closing. Same thing goes for when we get an announcement for a store that's going to be opening. We're able to start listing that immediately, so that gives the users of our, of our information a heads up as to what's going on.
That's the easier part. That's definitely a positive. And also, again, being able to understand or look at a lot more information about a property. So just one quick thing is if now you're able to visually see through satellite imagery what's going on in a property, [00:18:00] even if it's not current, you get a much better understanding about it.
And that also. Lends itself to what we do when we create our trade areas and our team does their geofencing, we're able to make sure that when we're creating geo fences, they're much more accurate than if somebody was just looking at a map and deciding that they're gonna draw a box around a shopping center.
You can make a lot of mistakes and very costly mistakes because you could be integrating, say, a hotel that's next door, that's not really part of the property, but because we have all of our information internally, We're able to cross reference that and our team is able to make sure that our geo fences are much more accurate.
And I should, uh, speak to the fact that our strategic partner with that is bi spatial. And so they've worked closely with us, not only with, uh, the creation of our geo fences and our retail boundaries, but also with a lot of this analytic work that's being done with the partner data. I
[00:18:58] Keith Seard: mean, it's very interesting.
Every action [00:19:00] has a reaction of course, but there it. Other opportunities and other areas where you have to focus on. And I think with adding more data as well, and even data sources or data touchpoints, what you end up having is also you have to rejigger your internal processes. Sort of. There are people now that want response times very quickly to certain changes because they saw it on the internet or you know, they're used to getting a quick post from TikTok or Instagram.
So it there really. Create an opportunity for more education about the data and the cycles in which data can be updated reasonably, but also accurately as well. Information comes from so many different sources, and it's like that game telephone, you can hear it from eight different people and it's eight different stories.
But only one person originated the story. We have been quite successful, and so it does create an opportunity for us internally also to engage with customers about how data gets [00:20:00] updated, how it's relevant to them, and really how they should use directory major malls as they cycle through their decision making processes.
[00:20:08] Tama Shor: And one thing to add to that is it's not just about the leasing of the shopping centers and the building of new properties and the renovation. The other side of it is those are assets that there's finances involved. So you have the companies that invest in the properties and acquire the properties and the mortgage lenders, so all of them.
Require an understanding of what's happening with centers all the time because the ebb and flow of the value of those assets will be affected by. Vacancies by redevelopment, by new properties going in across the street. I mean, that's a big thing to consider as well. You have to understand you have a property that maybe they're the dominant property for 25 years, and then down the street a new property goes in, that's going to have a big effect.
So anyone who has any skin in the game [00:21:00] with regard to a shopping. From ownership, from being a retailer there. From being an investor, as well as even the service companies and the suppliers. All need to understand an ongoing basis what's going on the landscape of a property and around that property. So many
[00:21:18] Kat Harwood: components.
Tell our listeners how many shopping centers you actually have in your system and how many landlords you're working with. Cuz I know the numbers are
[00:21:25] Tama Shor: pretty big. So our focus, um, is, and our name is deceiving because it was created so many years ago. We're not just malls. So it's the major shopping centers and that's also a subjective definition.
The major shopping centers throughout the US and Canada. So at this point we. 8,700 properties, of which 800 of them are in Canada and the bouncer is in the United States. Of that, we have about 315,000 individual stores that are associated with those properties as tenants. When we talk about the landlords, I mean there's [00:22:00] really thousands of landlords.
There are certain numbers of, you know, groups of. Owners that control a good portion of the industry. We have sort of divided the way our research team handles some of the maintaining and updating of the information is we split it off between those that have larger portfolios than others. And I could tell you that it's probably, this is off the top of my head, 150 companies that control over 50% of those properties.
But really you could even go down and say maybe there's 20 that control probably. 50% of that 50%, if not more. And then again, the other side you have to look at is not every portfolio holder has the same types of properties. There are those that are known for having all the major, you know, enclosed malls.
There are those that have, you know, Tanger Outlet has many outlet centers. There's those that are very focused on more of the community shopping centers. Kimco and site. [00:23:00] There's so many variations within that, but it's literally thousands of companies that control those shopping centers. I was thinking about
[00:23:08] Keith Seard: the, um, , the massiveness of how things shift.
You know, when someone says, Hey, we just bought another company. You're like, Whoa, okay. So now that owner, and now this owner, you know, I come from that world of. , you know, in terms of the strategy piece about how people they innovate or consolidate, you know, so the consolidation is really to gain market share.
And so you've seen that happen since the pandemic as well. Uh, and even pre pandemic companies bought up struggling centers, and now they became a dominant player in a particular market. And so we try to keep track of that as. And make sure that everybody is getting the right information with the right portfolio.
[00:23:47] Kat Harwood: Yeah. I'm excited to talk about how these centers
[00:23:49] Tama Shor: are changing when we talk about properties being acquired. Again, many of these companies are publicly held companies, so that affects. What goes on with evaluation [00:24:00] of the stock prices when they sell portfolios or they buy portfolios, Same thing when there's massive changes.
With regard to specific tenants, how does that affect, when JC Penney closes X numbers of stores, how does that trickle down to all those landlords? Who have JC Penney as an anchor store in their property. So again, it's all intertwined. So it's not just who owns it or who's managing it. There's so one move shifts so many different areas.
It's like the domino effect. Can
[00:24:31] Kat Harwood: you tell us a little bit about what you mean by anchor stores?
[00:24:35] Tama Shor: Sure. So anchor is pretty much what that word is. Usually going years back past to, you know, the start of the industry, it was what was drawing people to the property, which store. So usually those were department stores or, or railing community.
Centers, you're talking about the grocery stores. And so those were the ones that when you look at the traditional Anchored Shopping center or anchored enclosed mall, there might [00:25:00] be three or four anchor stores, and then you have all the, what we call them, inline stores in between, and maybe there's some out parcels, those that have locations in the parking lots as well.
Going back to when there became the innovation of the Lifestyle Center, that became the word of the day the Lifestyle Center became. Often open air properties that were more upscale and didn't necessarily have an anchor store, and that created another shift in the industry. Cause it was just a different format.
[00:25:31] Kat Harwood: It's crazy to think back. Even when I was younger, I would go to a shopping center and you know, the big one, you always enter through that one. You know everyone's. Parking there, and it is different when you really think about how these centers have changed. I mean, it's just night and day and then the way we've changed.
It's just this constant ecosystem of change today. It's, it's
[00:25:52] Tama Shor: interesting, right? And one of the things, one of the big changes also, we have these multi-use properties. So now we have not [00:26:00] only we, it's that concept of that live, work play. You have the retail going on, you have restaurant, you also have entertainment going on, but then you might have commercial space there.
You might have medical space there. We've also seen there are some that are specifically being built for that sort of format and hotels as well. But now there's also the conventional properties where they have say that vacant anchor space, reconfigured. To be part of the medical center, an annex for a school, a library, a senior center, a house of worship.
I mean, there's many different iterations of what's happening to that space. Sometimes those big spaces are broken up into other pieces, and some of times those conventional centers are now in the works to become a mixed use property. But all of that takes time. And there's an understanding or lack of understanding, I think sometimes in the public when they're.
Say a property that is going to undergo a transformation, that all that takes time. The municipality has to agree to, there's zoning changes, [00:27:00] there's traffic changes, there's funding. So it takes a bit of time for a center to go from what it used to be to what it really could be. I
[00:27:09] Kat Harwood: like that concept though.
You know, I feel like in the. So many of these centers, shops would close down, Anchor stores would close down, and maybe Amazon would come in, put a fulfillment center in there. And you just imagine all of these empty shopping centers across the us. It's kind of eerie. I don't know why. It just sounds kind of strange.
And then you think about today, you know what you're telling me how these centers are changing to be lifestyle centers and you can kind of have a one stop shop for everything And it's, it's just a really interesting concept to see that we've gotten.
[00:27:40] Keith Seard: And it's a huge shift in the way the industry thinks.
You know, we have, we've come through this situation where people have been inculturated into a model that's worked for decades and decades and decades. So it seems obvious looking from the outside in to say, Well, that would be great space for X, Y, Z, but it's not the model that the [00:28:00] owners or the industry was looking at.
So therefore, they didn't repurpose that space properly. You know, when you're pushed, especially with a. The chaos brings opportunity and it's opportunity that's, yes, it's forced upon you, but if you wanna survive, you have to push yourself to think differently. And you've seen that happen with all of these spaces over time, and I think it's still gonna emerge over time.
There are. Tons of centers out there that I think that are going to reshape themselves. They're gonna rebrand who they are, and this goes down to the individual tenants that are there as well. We're seeing massive brands now that are staples across the world, rebranding themselves to be something else.
They're no longer going to just be a part of a center. They're gonna be their own destination. So that too is shifting as the pandemic has pushed, it's shifting. It creates opportunity and I think people are willing to embrace something that they've never done before because [00:29:00] they think that it's a wide canvas right now and it's a blank canvas for them to be successful.
That's true.
[00:29:06] Kat Harwood: Change is the only thing you can count on.
[00:29:08] Tama Shor: And also, I mean, we can't leave out of the conversation what has e-commerce done to the industry. So again, it's not going away. The physical, retail, physical entertainment, people meeting to have dinner, to have drinks, it's the act of going to a shopping center or, or that sort of environment.
Part of the culture, certainly of the United States and, and I believe Canada as well, and many other parts of the world. I mean, it's not going away. People are not going to just be sitting home ordering what they need off of Amazon and not actively going out into the world. And I think that the pandemic, you know, was a wake up call for people.
I mean, one of the things too, it did allow for innovation. It allowed for people to understand also how to make a decision about how you're gonna use your time. Because there are people that were ordering groceries online that would [00:30:00] never have thought to order groceries. And now they realize, Wait, okay, I can do this.
It makes life easier for me. And the other thing too is it maybe gives me more quality time. As an example, I know somebody whose daughter's a teacher, and during the pandemic she learned all. Ordering online, you know, for the local grocery store and picking it up. And she said, You know what? I'm not wasting my Saturdays going to the grocery store and being away from my family.
I'll just keep ordering new groceries and I'll pull up, I'll pop my trunk and we'll put them in. But now I actually have more time to myself and to my family. Those are some of the decisions people have made. So I think they're picking and choosing which habits they're going to. Keep from the pandemic and others that they might adjust.
It is a different way of thinking than what had been. And it also forced the retailers to rethink how they were delivering their, their products and services to their customers, and they needed to adjust that.
[00:30:58] Keith Seard: It's actually been quite [00:31:00] good. If you take a step back and you look at all the changes too. One of the things that I find most interesting is the adoption of technology and the rate at which it was adopted.
I'm a consultant, you know, I've consulted for years, so Zoom, WebEx, you know, it was never really an issue for me because, you know, I have clients all over, so the. You know, it was second nature for me, but I think about the grandparents who used to always visit their grandchildren and now they couldn't fly.
Well, the only way for them to stay connected was to drop that resistance to technology and say, You know what? I'm going to use Google Meet. I'm gonna use WebEx or Zoom to still stay engaged personally and to see that. And if you expand that into a business, there are business. Literally technology businesses that actually weren't really using technology to do business.
They were only using it as sort of an internal convenience, and now they're seeing that their [00:32:00] structure can support it and their business actually needs it to grow.
[00:32:03] Tama Shor: Right, and we can be far more efficient. You know, you have people that would travel for client meetings, and I'm not saying that those aren't important, but you also have the ability to have a meet with somebody online to demonstrate whatever it is that you're selling to them.
and have that connection. And also I think there's a lot more, even to be said about being able to visually see each other on with a, a zoom call or whatever. You might be using teams or something. And then when you actually do see that person in person, which is what happened for us our first time out to the International Council of Shopping Centers, where I think they go.
I, I just ICS you now, but having their in person trade show in May where we saw people in person for the first time in the industry in two and a half years, um, but you felt like you knew them because you'd already been speaking with them and having Zoom meetings with them.
[00:32:58] Kat Harwood: Absolutely. I always think of that, [00:33:00] how thankful I am for technology like this.
It's the most personal way you can keep in touch with someone to see their face and hear them talk at the same time. I mean, it's, you don't get that over the phone.
[00:33:10] Keith Seard: No, it is creating demand, though I see more pressure coming from customers, vendors wanting to engage with you more quickly rather than, you know, uh, face to face.
They're wanting to absorb your product quicker. So that's meaning that people that are providers have to actually upgrade. They have to move forward to keep pace with this new demand that's been created for the use of technology. And
[00:33:38] Tama Shor: just jumping on that, you're absolutely right, Keith, because for instance, that's one of the things with what we made in the changes of our offerings on shopping centers.com, which is where people can access our data.
So we modified our tiers, so. Those that need only just the base shopping center information can get to it and contact information. But then also, now that we've brought [00:34:00] in all this other information, it's more one stop with the, we call it our mobile analytics. Tier where now we've already brought in all that information using the, using our, the geo fences and creating those trade areas and integrating the metrics we get from using the near data and the other information from CLA tos.
So it's one stop, so somebody can hop onto the website and they can see that information immediate. About any property that we're listing as opposed to having to reach out to somebody to get that data to bring it into their internal system or have it somebody else do the work for them. There's that time loss as opposed to, Hopping on logging in and outputting a report immediately that gives them information to go on right away.
[00:34:50] Kat Harwood: No, it's amazing. Now I feel like this needs to be a video podcast so we could show everyone what that platform looks like. It's so amazing to go through and check everything you want, see the data [00:35:00] you need right in front of you. It's just incredible. I would think that shopping centers dunno how. Lived without it before having something like this.
So let's talk about your customers, cuz I know you have so many amazing use cases. Tell me some of the, maybe the biggest transformations or some of the most interesting customer stories you have where they really took the data that you offer them and they've maybe improved their experiences for their customers or their shopping.
[00:35:27] Keith Seard: Well, it's a little bit further out, but coming in specifically to what you're asking for, when I think about the mobile data, the movement data, as well as the customer behavior data, all of that creates, you know, multiple dimensions to the same subject matter, and having those dimensions helps to make a more robust decision.
Now, the example that I have is one where a particular retailer was looking to open up multiple. With the segmentation data, they had found out we knew who their target [00:36:00] was, but when they look at their target against all the locations that they were going to be, they realize that one of the next centers that, or next locations, they were planning on open, none of their target existed.
So they were like, Wait a minute. We need to pull back from that location because we are about to invest a certain amount of money into that location, but our target customers that we're trying to reach are not there. So that's not a good decision. So it made them reevaluate that and it saves money. I got an actual real tidbit of a a fact for you in terms of a grocery store.
I was told. Particular, she said it's a million and a half dollars to open up a good center or a bad center. The idea is, do you wanna waste a million and a half dollars? So for her, for that particular brand, knowing where the right place to open up a, a shopping center, a grocery store is [00:37:00] important, it saves them 1.5 million.
That is hard numbers, and that money can be spent on the right location. But also help, It will drive the return on investment quicker and much easier because they are giving their consumers what they need. Wow.
[00:37:17] Kat Harwood: The importance of getting the insights you need and not using your gut, which apparently costs $1.5 million.
[00:37:25] Keith Seard: At least to our grocery store, it, it actually can be more
[00:37:28] Tama Shor: than that, right? Because you open up in the wrong location. Now you have a, a lease for X numbers of years. You had the build out of the property, You have your employees so you can make a bad decision and not really realize it's a bad decision for a couple of years, or be held to the obligation
[00:37:45] Keith Seard: from a a global brand perspective.
I mean, I can tell you, you know, for a fact, 250 million on one brand. Not targeted properly. It was a great product. It just went out the wrong way. And that [00:38:00] 250 million was over a span of time, but it encompassed research, it encompassed marketing plans, uh, incurs, staffing. All of those things go into that play.
And at a larger scale, 250 million. It's still a lot of money to lose over a span of time to not have a product that satisfies your consumer.
[00:38:22] Tama Shor: That first decision wasn't made using DMM data. . The realization that they made some mistakes was once they started using our data and, and worked with, you know, other analysis.
So yes, you have to make sure you have the right. Um, so again, you know, you have to dig down deeper into, not just if you talk about a shopping center that has activity at it, what's the activity? Who are the people that are coming there? What time of day are they coming? What's going on at the property that can change that, what's going on in the market?
You need to know a lot more than just the ebb and flow of [00:39:00] traffic on a Saturday in, you know, in. This
[00:39:03] Kat Harwood: makes me think a little bit about personalization and the importance of having that available for customers. How would you say that you are personalizing experience for your customers and you know, why is it
[00:39:15] Keith Seard: important?
Well, it came up in all that we were talking about, about the PA pandemic and how people's behavior changed. Well, What became important to them has changed as well. And I think from DM M'S. Evolution over time, and especially during the last two and a half years or so, we focused more on the data.
Providing information in terms of an application, looking more broader at things, adding more dimensions, and that being, the reason we're doing that is cause people need more than just data and a pinpoint of information isn't. Enough to make a robust decision. So having, you know, near data, mobility data, segmentation data, [00:40:00] it also allows you to make the, uh, give a solution to a, a problem, but it also creates an open door to other tangential opportunities If you want to expand on that data.
We have synergistic partnerships with near, with bi Spatial, with Caritas. There are ways that you can take this information and now engage with your customers, which is what I think all the consumers are really wanting now. They want to feel that I'm a part of your brand and your experience, and the company wants to be a part of your life so that you can buy their products and experience them in the way they want.
One
[00:40:37] Tama Shor: of the other things to add to that too, is when we're talking about, say, the, the activity of people at a shopping center, but obviously a property that hasn't been opened yet, that's in development. You need to know about that. You need to know about those proposed centers. So you can keep a watch on them as, say a retailer who's looking for locations.
So you have an understanding of, well, where's our next opportunity? [00:41:00] What's the market? Where are the markets? Where we are seeing growth? What are the. Biggest growth markets in the us? Are we targeting them appropriately? Are we looking for the right kinds of properties in those areas? Are there other properties in the pipeline that might serve us best?
So you need a lot more of that information as you're going down that
[00:41:20] Keith Seard: path. When you're talking specifically about personalization, one of the unique opportunities that we have and and we've tried to capitalize on over many years is, The data is neutral in the sense that it can be applied across many different industries and many different uses.
And so we, we pride ourselves in being a source of this is where you want to come and live, but also if you wanna take this and expand upon it, it does. Match seamlessly with other pieces of information. It's integrated into other systems and it becomes the neutral palette. It becomes the new gray or the basic black dress.
It [00:42:00] goes with anything. It's just a matter of how you wanna
[00:42:02] Kat Harwood: accessorize it makes me instantly wanna go shopping. It's funny, . So how about a story about how data maybe led to a successful decision or achievement?
[00:42:14] Keith Seard: I think there's a couple different ways. I think one of the ones I mentioned about the grocery, I think in a site selection scenario, the data has done that.
If you want to go down to a service provider, uh, route, there is, and I tell this story all the time, but there's a gentleman that I actually met, I guess years ago. He, he called in, but he actually uses the data. He's a paver. He paves parking lots, so he uses. Information on shopping centers. The age of when it is, you know who's doing what to reach out and contact and say, Hey, he engages with social media as well.
And he gets feedback from people on how they respond to a shopping center. And he says, Well, if this had a great parking lot, you know, would you go there? If it had great lighting, would you go there? [00:43:00] And then uses that information with the owners to say, I'm a service provider, I can actually pave your parking lot, give you better lighting, and therefore your customers will now wanna come here because they feel safer.
They feel that it's convenient, easy access. So this is the piece about DMM being broad enough for people to use it for different purposes if there are other opportunities. Built under the heading of shopping centers, people are prospecting for business for themselves. They're prospecting for business, for others, or just to gain understanding of a market or an environment.
[00:43:34] Tama Shor: Jumping on that, we've always had the other side of the business would be those that are the, the vendors and the suppliers and the marketing people that need to know who's the property manager, who's in charge of marketing for the property. I mean, when we talk about the trades and as, as Keith Referenc, The parking lots, if a parking lot's in bad shape.
Well, we don't, we can't tell you the parking lot's in bad shape. We can tell you how many parking spaces are [00:44:00] there and we can tell you the last time, you know, what the last year that the center was renovated or if they have unplanned, well, that ends up being a flag to anyone who might be involved in the trades.
They're the roofers, they're the parking lot people. The, there's even a business that does the striping of parking lots and the lighting people and the signage.
[00:44:18] Keith Seard: All of these things have a useful. And at some point they're obsolete and that obsolescence can cause the center of problem, a health
[00:44:25] Tama Shor: problem.
Right. And so those companies that are involved in that part of the industry have used us for years. To prospect and to find those property managers and others involved in the properties in order to pitch to them and to become their supplier. Wow,
[00:44:42] Kat Harwood: that's amazing. So many business opportunities you don't think of when it comes to shopping centers down to the escalators and the striping.
It's just incredible. But, um, I want to know from you both the experts here, um, any data dues and your [00:45:00] number one data don'ts for our listeners.
[00:45:03] Keith Seard: I will start with my data. Don't, because I think that the data don't, is, don't assume that all data is created equally. I think that is the biggest challenge and roadblock to success that any company has that's absorbing.
That's a
[00:45:23] Kat Harwood: good one and why I know it goes deeper than that.
[00:45:27] Keith Seard: My why leans towards my dues, which is understand the sample size of your data. You know, if you are looking to ascertain a trend, you need the largest data sample that you can, and you need to work with a provider of the largest datar sample so that you can make sure that you're going in the right direct.
Part of the reason that I say don't assume is you need to find out is information. Is it a smaller bucket and it's being extrapolated? Well, understanding. I may be extrapolating from my reference point, [00:46:00] not necessarily from your reference point.
[00:46:02] Tama Shor: Ta, what do you think? I would say in terms of the absolutely correct, make sure you know more about the data than what you're seeing at the surface.
Understand how current the data is, where it came from. You know, I, it's. Kind of funny cuz I'll just hop back to the talk about, uh, print publication, right? So many years back who had any other thing other than that for us, That big fat book that was sitting on their shelf And you, I remember people would say, Well, you know what?
I already know where they all are because I bought the book three years ago. So you still have that. People make a lot assumptions that they already know everything because they've been doing something for so long. It's always changing. Everything's always changing. All you need is, and you can even take a something that's a very successful location and something crazy happens, or anchors go out because the company or certain stores [00:47:00] go out because the company's making changes to their entire portfolio of locations.
So what you thought you knew yesterday might not be what you know today. So I would say that goes along the idea of don't and do actually . So just be, you know, vigilant about what the source is for information that you're going to make some big decisions about. And understand that the cost for that decision could be much greater than what you think it is because you're.
Taking into account that little bit of how much did that cost me when I'm looking at two data sources, Is this one this much money and this one is X times Y and that's more money. So that must be more expensive and I can't afford that. But is that truly the better? That might very well be the better way to go because that is the quality data.
And I think sometimes choices are made because of a budget line that. Actually be the [00:48:00] most rational way of making a decision about a source.
[00:48:04] Kat Harwood: What is sort of the future of retail look like to you? If you could predict it? I know we're moving into these lifestyle type of centers where you can eat workout.
Live? Is that where we're headed? Are we all gonna be living in our own little shopping centers or what do
[00:48:20] Tama Shor: you see, ? I don't wanna live in a shopping center. I don't have the crystal ball for where we're going to end up. But I can say that if you just look at the industry and people's relationship, To retail, It's always changing.
Retail has changed dramatically through all the decades of when we started off with small shopping centers with a grocery store, and then these enclosed malls started being built in the sixties, and those were, that was the big trend, you know, for, for several decades. And then the shift to other things.
So with all of that, people's habits change. Our lifestyles are changing, so I don't think that we're all going to. Uh, where the shopping is, however, or, you know, over the shop. [00:49:00] In fact, somebody mentioned that where it was, uh, somebody from an older generation and they talked about how they actually lived over the grocery store that their father had worked in or owned.
And it's kind of funny because now you have these communities and you have retirees moving to communities where now you have a live work play. And so now they're living in condos that are over the. And so it's kind of like gone full circle for them, where now they're back to living over the store. I think in terms of future, it's just ever changing.
I think we just have to be open to the fact that it's changing. Those that are developing the properties and investing them are understanding that they have to be more open and flexible to what's there. And whereas a number of years back, they were less flexible about thinking outside the. I think also it, it's the brands of the retailers, but it's also the shopping centers themselves because there is much more going on with regard to [00:50:00] creating a community around the shopping center.
They're building properties that have, you know, open space. For people to relax and just enjoy the environment they're putting in, you know, amphitheater. So different events can go on that people can come and visit. So when Keith talks about, you know, somebody maybe not having the money to travel somewhere, but you can drive down the street and end up at a, a shopping center that has outdoor concerts or plays being put on or different events and in.
To entertainment and you know, activities for your children. You know, there are shopping centers that have aquariums and museums and so many other things. So I think that that's the other side of it too, is that's where the evolution is, is creating much more around just the idea of you going buying something and going home.
This
[00:50:51] Kat Harwood: was such a fun discussion. I really enjoyed speaking with both of you. It
[00:50:56] Tama Shor: was fun, and thank you so much for inviting us on.
[00:51:00] Kat Harwood: Thank you for listening to this episode of The New World of Consumer Behavior. To learn more about this topic, check out the case study on our website. The link is in the show notes below. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave a rating and a review and tell a friend.
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