Store Tracker

Evolution to Revolution. Proliferating Formats Rescales & Transforms Retail Footprint

• Store Footprint: By chain, brand & format type [legacy & next gen], price point [luxury to deep discount], company-owned and franchised units, US & foreign-owned
• Store Pipeline Openings: New builds, acquisitions & conversions, relocations & remodels by chain, brand, format type [legacy & next gen] assessing the rate of expansion 
• Store Pipeline Closings: Purged locations and relocations to rationalize footprint & optimize sales, liquidation of entire format, spinoffs, divestures & asset sales by chain, brand, division & format types
• Timeline current year vs. 20-year annual history vs. proposed pipelines of openings and closings the next 2-5 years 
• Timeline current year compared to 20-year annual history for base store footprint and pipeline of openings as reported by each company through a series of financial reports [SEC filings, ratings agencies, Franchise Financial Disclosure documents [FDD], internal audits & press releases]. Extended timelines dating back to 1980s-90s available upon request. 
• Proposed pipelines of expansion & contraction [select closings by format & location or wholesale liquidation] are projected 1-3 years according to company reporting. 
• Format Size: Full range of square footage by core prototype, divisional secondary derivatives, next gen, right-sized [up-downsizing], superstores vs. boutiques, supercenters vs, express and digital delivery annexes, gross vs. net selling sf and acquired stores for current year, proposed resizing in next 1-2 years and historical measuring changes as business adapt to shifting competitive landscape and emerging digital and global marketplace 
• Format Type: Conventional store, Concept stores, Flagships, Experiential & Digital, Boutiques, Warehouses, Digital Delivery-Only, Factory Outlets among others [See “Format Universe” PDF below in Coverage for extensive list of formats by sector]
• Segmentation of Store Supply: The vast store network of the MAXIM Survey consisting of 5,100+ formats is segmented to determine inherent value and risks in the proliferation of new concepts and retention of legacy & obsolete store assets, such as the breakout of the store footprint of the core brand, divisional banners, ancillary businesses, next generation formats, franchised & licensed stores, pop-ups, in-shops third-party partnerships. 
• Location Criteria for New Store Models: Current location criterion and revisions accounted for under core & next gen formats as store optimization programs adapt to changing competitive landscape, local economy and pop-demos shaped by gentrification and/or exodus, altering channel dynamics in a digital age, new store models [hub & spoke] and subsequent launch of new formats creating new pipelines of expansion entering new 
• Next Generation Formats: Breakout of new concept launches & pilots by retailers and brand companies across all sectors providing a full description of the concept, proposed experience and function, size, design, location, digitization, targeted customers, productivity pro forma and growth strategy. The proliferation of new formats is in response to adapting to a new retail order in the post-pandemic global digital era. 
• Pipeline of Experimentation and Temporary Formats: Tracking the increasing rollout of pilots, temporary formats, pop-ups and digital-only formats is the most efficient and cost effective approach to keeping pace with the accelerating rate of innovation and disruption altering business models, store function and location dynamics. 
• Reconfigured Format Footprint: New store models reconfiguring function, design and layout such as co-branding and combo stores, pairing fashion and décor with hospitality, increase allocation of sq footage to third-party retail & brand in-shops, online pickup & mini DCs and warehouses

“1-in-3 Survey” bundles Sales Productivity Survey, Store Tracker Survey & Strategy Sweep Overview into one report for seven major retail segments.

• The Store Tracker profiles store footprint for all US and international divisions, brands, next generation formats, company-owned vs. franchised units. 
• Serves as a tool for unraveling the increasing complexity of store-based retailing over the past five decades across 184 subsectors supported by 1,500+ companies. Over the course of the millennium the structural changes have been steadily dismantling the old retail order that defined 20th C America once dominated by malls and superstores to yield a new marketplace of players and consumers while redefining the role and function of the conventional store format. 
• Shifting competitive landscape is depicted in the extensive multi-sector coverage
• Timeline tracks the transition of the bricks & mortar sector with the transition.
• Determines scalability of bricks & mortar formats capable of generating high four-wall productivity under a new world retail order and store models abandoning the 20th C chain store with the adoption of DTC [direct -to-consumer], hub & spoke, franchising, conversion retail to quasi retail-DC-warehouses, hybrid category convergence [fashion, food, hospitality, medical clinics etc.]. 
• Measures cadence of store expansion from the standpoint of new store models replacing the highly speculative 20th C chain store model, formats that peaking and hitting a wall, rebirth of legacy formats resonating with new marketplace and generation of consumer providing new avenues of growth.
• Frames cycle of expansion and contraction [“surge & purge”] for a vast diversified universe of subsectors supported by legacy retailers, new players born out of structural changes in retail and shopping [digital brands, local concepts & mom & pops] and incursion of foreign brands and chains while highlighting the strategies announced by management and change in leadership to generate growth and optimizing store productivity including new store models capable of generating stronger economics by lowering occupancy costs while consolidating share of revenues into fewer locations [hub & spoke, digitizing underutilized store square footage, etc.], reinvented formats that resonate with a new generation of consumers, new location criteria, new markets [urban vs. rural, US vs. Int’l], a confluence of initiatives that result in phasing out unsustainable formats, divisions banners & brands, vacate costly locations [rent surpasses productivity levels] 
• Highlights all store liquidations from bankruptcies, rent-seeking buyouts by private equity and hedge funds [Sears-Kmart under Lampert’s ESL]. 
• Impact on productivity from closing pipeline surpassing new openings detracting from value creation potential distinguished between well-operating retailers and junk credits. 
• Diagrams life cycle of each format by age of store base measured in terms of limited expansion and short duration against underperforming four-wall productivity reported in the Sale Productivity Gauge Survey report. Bad leadership and private equity ownership tempers durability of business and format. 
• Compression of lifecycle of formats as obsolescence has accelerated in a highly transitional marketplace. 
• Reset of format specifications by next generation store concepts adapting to a global and digital marketplace forgoing the 20th C chain store model detailing new layouts, size, function, experiences, location criteria. 
• Sustainability of formats declared “disruptors” to retail incumbents such as the short life of digitally native brand showrooms, small express formats of supercenters, brand extensions of fashion apparel, next generation concepts designed as new growth venues. Monitors alleged disruptors 5-10 years after initial launch. 
• Sustainability of formats of businesses undergoing a turnaround, repositioning, reinvention, rebranding, expanding beyond traditional borders [local to national, national to global] and/or led by new corporate leadership where family founders sell legacy retail to incumbents, buyouts by opportunistic and rent-seeking capital. 
• Scalability of next generation formats and pilots as regional & national chains in a new era when smaller footprints are supported by penetrating niche formats replaced the broad mass market sweep of chain store age. 
• Identifies dominant formats in the current cycle and marketplace replacing obsolescence and store formats currently defining the brand and shopping experience in the post pandemic. 
• Identifies store formats at greatest risk of demise and vulnerable to shifting marketplace. 
• Tracking innovation and next generation formats behind the wholesale reinvention of retailers and brand companies’ business models store networks in search for new avenues of growth. Proliferation of new concepts comprises a high percentage of pilots testing the potential to scale nationally or globally as a chain company-owned &/or franchised. 
• Consolidation dynamics under a reconfigured shopping landscape altered by the  structural transition and changing face of acquisitions and mergers over past four decades as opportunistic investors [private equity], rent-seeking hedge funds [Hudson Bay Company, Sears], ecommerce companies and well-capitalized large-scale retailers purchase trouble retailers, family businesses in search of takeouts and new start-ups play havoc with store footprints past three decades, sustaining expansion of marginal stores and concepts, propping up unsustainable businesses [wave of digital brand buyouts 2014 19 by Walmart, Target, Amazon], mass merchants and category killers located off the mall acquiring specialty chains wedded to malls [Dick’s Sporting Goods acquiring Foot Locker] 
• Diagrams the evolution of chain store model and format prototype in a continuously shifting competitive landscape since the 20th C post-war era attributed to rampant disintermediation by multi-channeled formats, disruption of incumbents and obsolete businesses and formats by secular forces [new trade policies, digital technology reconfiguring supply chains, rise of new superpowers such as China] and new generation of retailers, retail’s globalization, emergence of new brands and products [electric vehicles impact auto aftermarket] 
• Identifies retail models and formats redefining the competitive landscape as seen in the trade up to luxury and higher margin experiences in the post-pandemic and extreme wealth gap globally [K-economy] while scaling back value-oriented formats behind the bottom-up transition that has been underway since the 1970s when the wholesale club, supercenter, factory outlet and dollar stores were conceived. Upscale concepts have raised the bar to extreme luxury venues from the fashion couture conglomerates to niche grocers and fitness clubs [Erewhon, Kith, Equinox]. Strategic Overviews provide context to launch of new formats. 
• Discusses the changing design specifications of formats integrated with digital platforms and online infrastructure vs. stores that remain pure play. 
• The “Strategic Overview” and “About” sections highlight new business and store models for regenerative growth and to scale the store footprint in the US and internationally and the latest strategies to expand &/or rationalize the store network, optimize productivity by elevating the shopping experience by redesigning and reformatting layouts and size and relocations under new location criteria, rollout of next generation formats, rebranding and merchandising platforms, collaborations with third-party brands, designers, entertainment & hospitality venues, digital integration, turnarounds, acquisitions [companies, brands and store portfolios] to expand the model and market reach.
• Overview identifies structural changes in respective sectors, sources of disruption, impact of consolidation under Retail Apocalypse, global pandemic and geo-political risks and success in adapting store models and formats to emerging competition and marketplaces.