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Shopping Centers Today -> August 2003
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ANTHROPOLOGIE GIVES SHOPPERS A WORLD OF GOODS
BY MAURA K. AMMENHEUSER
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Retailers obviously want shoppers to spend money. Anthropologie invites them to spend time as well.
The 40-unit women’s apparel and home decor chain speaks to the browsers of the world, offering a boutiquelike environment in which to wander and unusual goods at which to wonder.
“They want the store to be a shopping experience,” said Wade McDevitt, president of the Philadelphia-based McDevitt Co., Anthropologie’s leasing agent. “They want people to dawdle.”
And there is plenty to dawdle over, notes another leasing executive.
“It’s a spectacular store filled with unique things,” said John Corritore, whose retail brokerage firm, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Corritore Co., leased Kierland Commons, a 400,000-square-foot lifestyle center in Scottsdale, where Anthropologie opened three years ago.
Anthropologie was created in 1992 by Urban Outfitters, the Philadelphia-based purveyor of clothing, housewares and gifts for the young and urbane. Unlike its parent company, Anthropologie caters strictly to women — specifically, affluent, well-traveled 30-to-40-year-olds, though it draws younger ones too. Prices range from moderate to upscale.
But Anthropologie’s customers don’t go there for bargains. They go to explore.
“It is the study of foreign cultures that brings richness and meaning to our own,” intones Anthropologie’s Web site, www.anthropologie.com. (The company also sells through a catalog, circulation 12 million and rising, according to Urban Outfitters’s annual report.)
Company officials would not speak with SCT. But the Web site boasts of “finding beautiful objects that improve quality of life. … Our buyers spend more than half the year traveling through Europe, India and the Far East, combing through flea markets, antique shops and estate sales for inspiration.” They import some goods and reinvent others under private labels.
Indeed, the colorful, soothing stores are full of pretty, eclectic things.
The clothing features luxurious fabric and delicate details. The spring lineup bucked the mainstream, 1970s-style trend in favor of softer, Jackie-O-ish glamour reminiscent of the early ’60s. (Examples are a $78 floral sundress with a boxy bow and an $88 wraparound seersucker skirt.) Housewares run the gamut from cloth-and-crocheted napkins (four for $16) to jewel-toned, beaded lamp shades ($48 to $88).
“They put lots of effort into visual merchandising,” said Judith West, owner and CEO of Westco, a New York City-based merchandising and design firm. “Take a very ordinary category — cabinet knobs, light switches and that kind of stuff. [Anthropologie] takes a commodity and turns it into a fashion.”
It treats its space the same way. Pompei A.D., based in New York City, custom designs each store, says Principal Ron Pompei. “Anthropologie began … as an antidote to an over-digitized environment that more and more working women were living in,” Pompei said. These stores are meant to be “high touch, not high tech.”
The stores typically feature wood, stone and other natural materials, high ceilings and a series of distinct alcoves offering a more intimate display environment. But the designs are site-specific in terms of colors, materials and more, Pompei says. Size varies widely, from 8,000 to 15,000 square feet, and Anthropologie executives meet every other week with Pompei’s staff to brainstorm future designs, he says. Even display fixtures are chosen for aesthetics. At Fashion Island, Newport Beach, Calif., Anthropologie’s wares are laid out on mantels, ladders and porcelain tables. The place feels remarkably like an antiques shop.
“It’s vintage,” said Kathryn Eisenhower, a shopper browsing the store for pillows and other home decor items. “I have lots of vintage furniture. But I don’t like to shop at thrift stores.”
Others simply enjoy the novelty. “It’s just fun — the clothes are kind of different,” said Kristin Becksted, another customer, who bought a $30 black tank top.
Ever-changing design, unusual merchandise and a reliance on catalogs and word-of-mouth in lieu of advertising all sound risky. But Anthropologie’s net sales in fiscal 2003 (which ended in January) jumped 31 percent from $120.8 million to $158.7 million, according to the Urban Outfitters annual report. Same-store sales rose 12 percent. For the first quarter of fiscal 2004, sales climbed 12 percent against the year-ago quarter, to $41 million, but comp-store sales dropped 2 percent, company officials said during a May conference call with analysts to announce the quarter’s results. During that call, the chain’s president, Richard Hayne, blamed the comp-store drop on an early conversion to spring merchandise while cold weather lingered in much of the country. He predicted “modest single-digit comps this year.”
Landlords aren’t worried. Anthropologie does better than the centerwide average of $526 per square foot at Seattle’s University Village, a 400,000-square-foot, open-air lifestyle center, said its manager, Susie Plummer. The 11,000-square-foot store opened five years ago, she says, and “they continue to increase their sales” annually, luring mothers with daughters, as well as plenty of students from the nearby University of Washington.
Anthropologie has achieved “fabulous” sales at Mall at Millenia, the 1.3 million-square-foot center that opened last fall in Orlando, Fla., says David Forbes, leasing manager at The Forbes Co., which manages the center and co-owns it with Taubman Centers. He wouldn’t specify sales levels, but says Anthropologie’s 8,300-square-foot shop has already attained to the mall’s average sales figure. “For a store that size to do that volume is an achievement in itself,” Forbes said. He says he is pleased to see that in addition to attracting some of Orlando’s many tourists, Anthropologie “has appealed more to the local population than we expected.” That’s a strong omen, he says.
Anthropologie cherry-picks locations and will open just 10 to 12 new stores this year, McDevitt says. “It’s a very conservative, controlled growth program,” he said, typically involving just one store per market. Anthropologie began as a streetfront concept and moved into malls two years ago. Future stores will include lifestyle and freestanding sites, too, McDevitt says.
“They’ll wait for the right site,” said Mary Beth Jenkins, president of The Laramie Co., a Denver real estate brokerage and consulting firm. (At press time Anthropologie was set for a July opening at Denver’s upscale Cherry Creek Mall.) “They won’t compromise to enter a market,” she said. “Unless you have the top project in the city, you probably won’t be dealing with Anthropologie.”
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