News
Retail Speed Dating
July 15, 2010
| Our headline was a favorite activity at yesterday's ICSC New England Idea Exchange for women in real estate. We don't know if it spawned any matches, but we heard reviews were positive. |
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| We snapped a group discussing globalization (a favorite dating topic of ours... or so we think, nobody asks us anymore): Marcus & Millichap?s L.A. Drinkwater, DiCicco, Gulman?s Jennifer Murphy and Elizabeth Sliwinski, Patricia Lenehan, and standing, moderator Debra Hazel and Boston Urban Partners' Ann Ehrhart. Debra introduced this talk saying there's been a new explosion of shopping cross-fertilization with US firms like Best Buy and Wal-Mart expanding abroad and foreign firms, especially the Brits, opening shop here. Prompted by recession affordability and Internet familiarity, some like India?s Kimaya and Japan?s Uniqlo have debuted in the Big Apple. Others like the UK?s Ted Baker and Hotel Chocolat have come to Boston, where consumers are sophisticated yet the city has an intimate, Euro ambiance. Debra says often they head for urban downtowns or ?A++? malls they couldn't have afforded before. |
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| Gathered for the saga of Hotel Chocolat, which entered the US market last year with two Boston shops (Newbury Street, and the Chestnut Hill Mall), are Todreas Hanley?s Carol Todreas, Ann Erhart, CBRE/Grossman Retail?s Andrea Matteson, Seyfarth Shaw?s Catherine Burns, Hotel Chocolat US CEO Nicki Doggart, Edens & Avant?s Elizabeth Furnelli, and Milestone?s Ellen Lee. Although Nicki attributes ?lots of gray hair? to Boston?s infamously complex permitting process, it's a great place for the US launch of her ?accessible luxury? fine chocolates. It's a small yet affluent market, more ?forgiving,? less aggressive, less costly than NYC and it's the most European US city. Nicki says her two locations here are in different submarkets and each ?is like a brand new country, oh my goodness.? |
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| We snapped Cole Schotz? Wendy Berger and Stop & Shop?s Deborah Farr after Wendy completed her session on Negotiating for Business and Life. Wendy says that as women, we're negotiating constantly, with children, colleagues, friends, and life partners. Negotiating, she says, boils down to cooperating with others to get things done. It calls for communication, listening, marketing, persuasion, instinct, and conflict resolution. Wendy makes it all sound so easy. |
