Following fantastic retail trips to, among others, Japan, China and the Middle East, we had the pleasure of organising a 7-day retail trip to the USA last November for a group of retail entrepreneurs, in collaboration with street-o-logist Pim van den Berg (company: Perspectives). The trip started in Detroit and continued in the USA capital; Washington D.C. and the city that never sleeps; New York City! In the December 2022/January 2023 edition of the FoodPersonality Magazine Pim takes you through some special retail moments from this American road trip:
Fantastic retail journey United States
Published in: FoodPersonality Magazine
Written by: Pim van den Berg (streetologist)
Edition December 2022/January 2023
“I'm never allowed to just advertise my study trips in ‘my column’ by the editor-in-chief Gé Lommen of this magazine. Okay, okay, I get that. But still. It was simply amazing to experience, if I do say so myself. A seven-day trip, with 34 entrepreneurs – and I'm keeping which retail chain they belong to to myself for now – to New York, Washington DC, and Detroit. What am I showing here? Paco Underhill on that stage, the Northland building site, landlord Les Gold, and a payment via palm scan in a Whole Foods Market.
Ruins of Northland
The construction site. We in the Netherlands can take it as an example. Why? Northland was the first major suburban shopping centre in the US, and possibly the world. It was built in Detroit in the 1960s. The department store Hudson's established itself there – not to be confused with the Canadian Hudson's Bay – and because Hudson's opened branches in the north, west, east, and south of Detroit, the original Hudson's department store in downtown Detroit, a 21-storey building, subsequently fared very poorly. And subsequently, the Northland shopping centre didn't fare much better.
Detroit has rigorously demolished it, getting rid of all the decay and dereliction: here comes a large building with housing, offices, and a small retail facility. Look, this is how you deal with dereliction.
Les Gold Pawnshop
Les Gold – you might know him from the TV show Hardcore Pawn. This property magnate, extremely well-known in the US, has an Oscar statuette in his hands here. It belongs to a famous American film actor, who has apparently run into serious financial trouble afterwards and thus pawned his Oscar to Les Gold. Gold wouldn't say which actor it was, he'd promised him. This landlord's property covers about 5,000 m². And what did we find there? Huge motorbikes, ostentatious cars, a warehouse full of fur coats that have all started to smell old and musty. Furthermore; he also has a race circuit as collateral. And a district of a city near Detroit, I've forgotten which one. But apparently, a municipality is in financial difficulties and Gold has a ‘district’ as collateral somewhere. That district and that race circuit are not stored at his place; he's naturally left them where they are.
Paco Underhill – Why We Buy
Paco Underhill, you'll no doubt know him from ‘Why We Buy‘ and other books on consumer and shopping behaviour. Still a highly sought-after speaker. World-famous ’retail anthropologist‘. And I can say this without hesitation: a good friend of mine, for at least twenty years. We are alike, with our constant attention to retail, shops, and consumer behaviour. Once, we were both speakers at an event for a lightbulb manufacturer from the south of the country, whom I shall not name further, where Paco received 10,000 and I 3,500, I believe, he even in dollars and I in euros. But I did not set our friendship aside for that.
Paying with your palm
And that palm payment, that was new to me too. In New York, we first walked through the trendy neighbourhoods of Williamsburg and Brooklyn. After that, we ended up in a fairly new branch of Whole Foods Market in New York's Hudson Yards. You scan your credit card. You give your phone number. Scan both hands and you're done. From now on, only paying with a wave of your hand...
And then I'll leave the high-end supermarkets, restaurants, museums, parks, and indeed the whole public space of Washington for what they are.
Ah well. Travelling. Flying is as wrong as eating meat. When it comes to travel: all those miles I’ve covered over the years… I’ll never manage to make up for them, I realise. But if you want to make unforgettable impressions, or discover important insights – in shops, in cities – then you’ll have to leave your study, leave your office, leave your comfort zone. Travelling is important. But *not* travelling, that’s even worse.
This article appeared in the December 2022/January 2023 edition of FoodPersonality Magazine.