STORES Magazine - January 2008 - (Page 18)

trEnDS House of Hoops Scores What began as a store-withina-store promotion quickly snowballed into a stand-alone “hub for all things basketball.” Welcome to House of Hoops, a joint retail venture between Nike and Foot Locker that focuses exclusively on basketballspecific premium products sold by Nike, Jordan and Converse. The initial Harlem location is one of 50 House of Hoops stores the companies plan to open across the country over the next three years. House of Hoops sells products available nowhere else in the United States, including 30 exclusive pairs of sneakers embellished with the crest or initials worn by star players like Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter. he Q4 2007 A T-shirt bar allows shoppers to customize purchases squalls that came with local designs, and the Hoops Essential area is in the form of housing stocked with basketball shorts and shoes in the colors repwoes, stock market resentative of local high school teams. The store also feagyrations, rising oil tures a VIP lounge where shoppers can read sports magaprices and tight credit zines and watch player interviews on a big screen. markets pushed DeThe stores are part of Nike’s latest growth strategy — incember consumer vesting in new types of retail opportunities – and also proconfidence readings vide a fresh business opportunity for Foot Locker which, to their lowest point in like many mall-based athletic retailers, has had to contend five years. According to the with slower traffic and changing consumer tastes. T latest Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, compiled by BIGresearch, just over a third of the respondents (37 percent) described their economic outlook as very confident or confident, down 10 points from December 2006. The silver lining is that the results were on par with November, suggesting that shoppers weren’t feeling worse than they were a few weeks earlier. How will shoppers’ economic outlook affect spending in 2008? The results of this survey also suggest consumers will continue hitting the stores, but the pace of spending is likely to slow and shoppers will focus more on needs than wants. Practicality among consumers is on the rise: Two in five shoppers (40.3 percent) indicate they’ve become more practical in their purchasing — up from 38.8 percent in November, but down half a point from a year earlier. Many consumers may have asked Santa for that 60inch HDTV, but when it comes right down to it they’d probably concede that they don’t really need it. The data shows that 47.4 percent are more focused on needs over wants, up from 46.5 percent last month and another sign that consumers were hedging their spending as they head into the new year. Spending is not the only thing on consumers’ minds. As presidential hopefuls continue to spar on the airwaves and the war in Iraq continues, 18 percent of those polled indicated concern about political and national security issues. Mobile Rollout Rolls On Lest you have any doubt the pervasiveness of mobile devices, word out of Minneapolis is that Best Buy is planning to have as many as 1,000 Best Buy Mobile in-store shops installed chainwide by the end of 2009. That’s in addition to the growing number of freestanding Best Buy Mobile units that the company has been opening since 2006. The stores feature an expanded assortment of handsets, accessories and services for multiple carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) such as Boost, Kajeet and Virgin. The concept was launched in late 2006 in Manhattan, and by the end of September had expanded to 70 locations around the country. Best Buy’s partner in the venture, Britain’s Carphone Warehouse, is the world’s largest independent mobile phone retailer. WWW.STORES.ORG 18 STORES / JANUARY 2008 http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - January 2008

STORES Magazine - January 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Build a 'Bot Sneak Peek at Fashion Trends What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Cover Story: Fishing for Talent Retail CEO Compensation Research Concept2Watch E-Commerce Payment Solutions Online Merchandising POS LPInformation LP Vantage Point Newsbeat Industry Watch Cover Story: Making LP PCI-Compliant Mall Security Video Surveillance Industry Perspective Forum RFID Business Intelligence Data Management Logistics Turning Green into Gold Love of – and for – the Outdoors Loeb Retail Letter ARTS Update Point of View NRF News Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - January 2008

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