Why Retail Brands Are Setting Up Shop in the Palm Beach Area--and Finding Eager Customers — Inc. Magazine (West Palm Beach: sales)

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Why Retail Brands Are Setting Up Shop in the Palm Beach Area--and Finding Eager Customers — Inc. Magazine



"Since the start of the pandemic, retail brands have increasingly set up brick-and-mortar locations in this sunny southeast Florida locale, and for good reason: Since the start of the pandemic, Palm Beach County has grown by a net 14,236 households, placing it among the top 10 counties with the greatest net migration, according to data from the U.S. Postal Service.

"There have been massive droves of people who have relocated to this part of Florida," says Amish Tolia, CEO and co-founder of the New York City-based omnichannel retail platform Leap. "That creates a whole new ecosystem of possibility and potential for retail." Because Palm Beach proper tends to be more expensive, Tolia says that brands have found success just outside of the city in nearby West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens. Since 2020, Leap has launched seven retail locations in the Palm Beach area, most recently opening Doral, Florida-based swimwear line Luli Fama, Cary, North Carolina, golf brand Stitch Golf, and New York City-based clothing brand Fair Harbor in Palm Beach Gardens.


OHHo, launched in 2020, opened its first retail location in Bedford, New York, in 2021. For its second store, the brand favored a warm-weather location; California proved to be a challenging and concentrated market, but Florida seemed promising--and not just because oHHo already had a strong customer base in the area. "A lot of our customer base in New York travel to Florida during the winter--there's an East Coast shuttle, in a way," Stephenson says. "Focusing on the East Coast became an obvious win for us."


Developers have taken note--and responded to demand by breaking ground. New retail developments under way in Palm Beach County are likely to help businesses capitalize on South Florida's booming retail sales without having to contend with a space shortage: Avenir, a living community currently in development in Palm Beach Gardens, will offer 400,000 square feet of retail space, and Nora, a development in West Palm Beach, will transform turn-of-the-century warehouses for retail and hospitality use.

"We're incredibly bullish on what we're seeing in southern Florida," says Tolia. "Folks that have relocated down to this region are certainly not going anywhere. As the population grows, there's always going to be a need for great experiential retailing. The momentum is certainly here to stay."


https://www.inc.com/rebecca-deczynsk...customers.html

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