Simon Teams with Shopify and Leap To Bring Brands To Its Centers

Simon Property Group has an innovative new way to usher brands into its shopping centers.

The nation’s largest developer and operator of shopping centers is collaborating with Shopify, the global e-commerce platform, and Leap, a platform for physical retail, to provide brands with the technology and operations they need to open brick-and-mortar locations, in particular e-commerce-only brands or brands with limited experience or resources to deploy physical stores.

“The idea is you have the largest retail landlord in the U.S., the largest e-commerce platform in the U.S., and the largest operator of retail as a service company collaborating together to help more brands enter retail efficiently and quickly,” said Zachary Beloff, vice president of business development and leasing for Simon, in an interview.

Simon, Shopify and Leap together “can be a very attractive partner for brands looking to enter retail for the first time,” Beloff said. “It’s a very interesting way to support smaller brands newer to retail, but it’s not exclusive to small brands. We are welcoming all sorts of different categories and brands of all different sizes.”

Currently, a few apparel and fine jewelry brands have taken advantage of the Simon-Shopify-Leap program. But Beloff expects the field to widen. “We are working with some home goods brands and children’s retailers,” he said, without disclosing any names.

Ring Concierge was the first brand to engage the group by opening two stores at the end of last year at two Simon properties, the Town Center at Boca Raton in Florida and the Houston Galleria. “We are currently working to expand that partnership,” Beloff said. Ring Concierge also has stores in New York City, on Madison Avenue and on Bleecker Street, and in Los Angeles at Westfield Century City, a mall owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.

True Classic, a men’s sportswear brand, last year opened a store through the partnership in Simon’s Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, Calif.

While Shopify’s core business is getting brands up and running with online stores, the collaboration with Simon and Leap enables Shopify to provide brands with its suite of technology products including point of sale, inventory management and payments systems as well as customer data needed for brick-and-mortar stores. In addition, because Shopify has vast insights into brands, it has an ability to identify those that are growing and ready to embark on physical retail.

“By unifying a merchant’s online and offline sales experience, Shopify empowers millions of brands to grow and scale their businesses,” said Ritu Khanna, vice president of partnerships at Shopify. “We are thrilled to work alongside Simon and Leap to bring e-commerce brands like Ring Concierge to physical retail faster and easier than ever before.”

Leap provides location sourcing, store design, construction, staffing, management and marketing support along with Simon, as well as technology capabilities that help with the store operations. Leap also signs the leases for the brands. Brands sign agreements with Leap, which then designs, builds and operates the stores.

“We’re excited to enable Ring Concierge to further build their brand and reach their local customer base in premium Simon centers,” said Amish Tolia, cofounder and chief executive officer at Leap. “After launching over 60 brands in physical retail, and managing a fleet of over 100 stores, our platform understands the many challenges that come with scaling the channel. Collaborating with Simon and Shopify will accelerate our mission, to help winning brands scale retail, turnkey.”

For Simon, collaborating with Shopify and Link is a further indication of the real estate investment trust’s willingness to integrate with the dot.com world, rather than just competing against it. Last fall, Simon revamped its e-commerce website for a much broader selection of sale priced items, and renamed it ShopSimon. The expanded and rebranded digital marketplace includes on-sale and discounted merchandise, while continuing to offer outlet products from brands. The old website offered only products from Simon’s network of outlets around the country.

The new program is also an indication that while Simon has a very high occupancy rate — 96.5 percent as of Dec. 31, up from 95.8 percent a year earlier — the real estate company is always on the prowl for new tenants as leases expire or stores go out of business. It’s important that developers refresh the merchandising of their centers with new brands for better shopping experiences.

“We are always looking for new brands, whether it be on our international travels, or following trends on social media,” said Beloff, a 10-year veteran of Simon who has been instrumental in bringing brands to the portfolio and helping them expand. “We also want to create the best destinations for our customers, and part of that is discovery and finding newness.”

Working with Shopify and Leap, he said, is a new way to work with brands in the early stages of their expansion, but not the only one. “We’ve had a lot of success [establishing] relationships with brands early on in their physical expansions and helping them grow.

“Simon, Shopify and Leap were instrumental in helping us implement our brick-and-mortar growth strategy,” said Nicole Wegman, founder of Ring Concierge, in a statement. “Their knowledge, expertise and support saved us valuable time and resources, and have helped us scale our physical retail footprint faster than we could have imagined. We are highly encouraged by our [fourth-quarter] sales performance that we saw in these new markets over the holiday season.…Thanks to the expertise of Simon, Shopify and Leap, we efficiently and successfully implemented our omnichannel growth strategy.”