When Gap announces that it’s closing 150 stores it makes headline news. When women’s and men’s fashion retailer MAD Style opens a store in Minnesota’s Northtown Mall, the media is a bit quieter.
As major retailers continue to radically downsize their retail portfolios, it’s created an opportunity for smaller players to enter the market.
In cities around the world, retailers are quietly opening up new boutiques or adding more stores to an existing retail concept. Many started out online and then tested the market with pop ups or kiosks. Now, as retail vacancies are piling up, they are seizing the moment.
From a solopreneur here to a local business there, the number of small-to-medium size businesses (known as SMB’s or SME’s) are growing – and that growth is likely to accelerate given current market conditions.
It’s not only retail vacancies – there’s been a confluence of shifts, from the growth of e-commerce to the massive expansion of SAAS (software as a service) technology that has in a sense started to level the playing field for small to medium sized brands and retailers.
