New York, Dubai and London Top Draws for International Retail
By Carl Gaines April 18, 2012 8:30 am
reprintsCBRE Global Research and Consulting is out with the 2012 edition of its “How Global is the Business of Retail?” report and the results show that New York City has some ground to make up when it comes to its status as a top draw for international retail brands.
To compile the report—which comes just ahead of next month’s International Council of Shopping Center’s Vegas RECon event—CBRE surveyed 326 international retailers, across 73 countries.
In a ranking of top ten global cities, the data showed that 43.9 percent of those international retail brands surveyed have a presence in the Big Apple. This places New York City third—behind Dubai, with 53.8 percent and top draw London, with 55.5 percent. According to CBRE executive managing director of Retail Services Anthony Buono, a fair share of that interest in London is in fact on the part of U.S.-based retailers.
“Retailers in the U.S. continued to strategically expand into the U.K. in 2011,” Mr. Buono said in a prepared statement about the report. “U.S. retailer expansion in the U.K. has been fueled by domestic market saturation, along with the fact that the shared language and cultural characteristics between the U.S. and the U.K. typically make establishing a brand and merchandising a store easier than in other European markets.”
In all, 64.7 percent of American retailers targeted London. Dubai attracted 61.2 percent and Kuwait City 49.3 percent.
The report showed expanding interests among retailers in foreign markets in general—in fact, 74 percent of countries surveyed saw at least one new retailer enter their market over the course of 2011.
Several up-and-coming markets were also identified in the report. Poland, Vietnam and Russia were all marked as “ones to watch” due to the surge in new retailer entries each has experienced over the past several years.
Cgaines@observer.com
