Lori Kilberg of Hartman Simons, and president of CREW Network, spoke with Michael Bull at ICSC about omnichannel marketing in the retail industry, as well as the current and future role women have in the commercial real estate industry.
“It’s all about omnichanneling and how you capture the money that’s coming in through the internet rather than the brick-and-mortar [locations],” Kilberg said. One example Kilberg shared is some retailers are giving coupons for their customers to shop online to save. “They understand that expands their sales,” she said. “They can get them in the stores, sell them through the stores, and then continue that shopping experience when the customer goes home and is back on their computer. They are shopping there and from home, and it only increases their sales." However, Kilberg says this is creating a problem because retailers are using their real estate locations to increase sales by engaging customers online but the landlord gets no percentage of those sales.
Kilberg also touched on her work with the CREW. One big initiative for the year is their benchmark study which is done in conjunction with MIT, she said. The study which comes out every five years, includes success and satisfaction of women in commercial real estate, and highlights compensation, satisfaction, promotion, retention and comparing that their male counterparts. “There’s still a huge gap in compensation, promotion and retention of women,” Kilberg said. “We are losing a lot of senior level women who are coming up from the mid levels to the upper levels and then leaving.”
For more, check out the video below: