The retail crisis

Since approximately 2015, we have been seeing a change of model in the retail sector: in conversations with international operators in the sector, they mentioned the existence of vacant locations in high streets in the USA, or even a certain decline in shopping centers, in the cradle of the creation of the malls. A fact that we should certainly keep in mind, since on many occasions, what happens in this sector in the USA is a prelude to what happens in Europe years later.

This decline has not been due to a decrease in consumption, but rather because consumer preferences and habits are changing. The pace of life, the lack of time to travel to stores and the desire for immediacy of this era, among many other factors, have driven the growth of online commerce. Whoever reaches the consumer first, wins.

Because for the consumer it is no longer enough to go to an area where they can access an agglomeration of brands oriented to their profile, and consequently shopping centers have had to reinvent themselves, offering experiences and activities to the customer that differentiate them from the competition (something that we are already seeing in shopping centers in our country), in order to maintain affluence. An experience that the client cannot obtain from home; the necessary evolutionary response to the changing environment and the client.

Within this framework, where online commerce had already been gaining prominence, which was a continuous trend more or less linear, it has suffered a turning point, unfortunately motivated by the pandemic, which has exponentially accelerated the growth of online commerce, and tragically, along with the impact of the measures taken (or not taken), the fall of traditional commerce. 

Until now, much of the success of commerce was location. However, in a framework of falling affluences and consequently of sales, contrary to previous crises where sales were falling and not affluences, when the trend and social habits are changing in such a striking way, and it will be complicated to recover the pre-crisis affluences in the short to medium term, it seems that the solution is to invest in e-commerce and to reduce costs.

Although in general the closure of the most exclusive stores or more powerful brands is more noticeable, the strategy of reducing the number of stores and the process of concentration of stores has been in place for many for several years, and is something that is now accelerating (e.g. Inditex). These brands tend to be in the hands of family offices and institutional investors with a greater capacity for renegotiating rents, discounts or lack of payment, not to mention a greater lung than that of the owners of premises in less representative neighbourhoods or the tenants of such premises. 

It is the small and medium sized commerce located at street level, which depends mainly on the affluence of clients, being of convenience and not an anchor per se, that suffers the most, that has less means and less capacity to deal with the digitalization of its business, which is dictated by the demand, or must subsist with affluence and limited purchasing power. Whoever can, or will, adapt to the negligent lack of effective solutions by the country’s political sector.

A sample of this: according to a recent analysis by CBRE, in the commercial jewel of Madrid, composed of seven streets —Gran Vía, Preciados, Puerta del Sol, Fuencarral, Serrano, Ortega y Gasset and Goya—, “there are 55 stores available from a stock of 745, which means a vacancy rate of 7.25%”, “We see a change because in a healthy market you would have to move between 3% and 5%,” says Santos Robson, director of Retail Investments in CBRE Spain. More of the same can be found in Barcelona’s commercial treasury —Via Diagonal, Passeig de Gràcia, Portal de l’Àngel, Portaferrissa, Rambla de Catalunya, Las Ramblas, Pelayo—, where there are more than 50 stores available out of a total of 850, representing 6.5%.

Be that as it may, if a year ago the availability rate in the street of Serrano (Madrid) was 8%, now it is 12%, according to CBRE’s calculations. In Paseo de Gracia (Barcelona), it has gone from 8% to 10% in one year.

And what will happen with these empty locations? Changes of use are being considered for homes, last mile points for logistics, garages, storage rooms… We will see