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In our shopping dreams

Now that Tampa Bay has matured beyond the "we're not worthy" stage with many successful luxury chains, it's time to start lobbying landlords to sign more hot retailers.

By Mark Albright, On Retail
Published July 4, 2007

Two pedestrians pass a shop of the fashion retailer H & M in Frankfurt, Germany. Hennes & Mauritz AB is Europe's largest fashion retailer.
	[AP photo]

ADVERTISEMENT [AP photo] Organizational and storage items line the shelf at The Container Store.

Now that Tampa Bay has matured beyond the "we're not worthy" stage with many successful luxury chains, it's time to start lobbying landlords to sign more hot retailers.

We've got Forever XXI and other fast-fashion stores, but we're missing trendy stalwarts that brought the movement to the United States: the Swedish H&M, the Japanese Uniqlo and the Spanish Zara as they spread across the country. British Topshop is coming across the Atlantic for the first time. And how about American Apparel, the Los Angeles sportswear chain that claims to pay its factory workers a living wage?

With IKEA coming and International Plaza negotiating with Crate & Barrel, someone should go after the home-organization gurus at the Container Store and Sur La Table, a kitchen-tools rival to Williams-Sonoma.

Jimmy Choo's has a boutique in Orlando, but not here. Cartier is in Orlando and coming to Naples, but has no plans for Tampa.

Many shoppers yearn for Trader Joe's, but Florida is not on the quirky grocer's radar now that its no-frills sibling Aldi makes its Florida debut next year.

How about you? Did I miss a favorite?

A wish list:

Short for Hennes & Mauritz, Swedish H&M does ultra-trendy men's and women's clothes at budget prices. A pioneer of cheap chic before Target discovered it, H&M fast-fashion collections have been designed by the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and, this summer, Roberto Cavalli. There are 1,300 H&Ms in 28 countries and now 18 states in the United States. The face in its ads is Mads Mikkelsen, the bad guy in Casino Royale.

Founded with a mission to "simplify people's lives," the Container Store is a big-box chain with 10,000 items to stuff your stuff. Named one of the 100 best places to work by Fortune eight years running and lauded for its customer service, its employees dispense advice on organizing closets, kitchens, laundries and the office. The Dallas-based chain of 39 stores generated sales of $600-million in 2006. The two founders sold their controlling interest last week to a private equity firm but will remain in charge.

Sur La Table, born in Seattle's Pike Place Market in 1972, has grown into Williams-Sonoma's biggest rival with 60 stores. Its cooking classes make foodies drool and its gourmet utensils drive kitchen gadget-types ga-ga. It's the exclusive U.S. seller of Disney-licensed Ratatouille cookware, tableware and bedding.

Jimmy Choo, an East London couture shoemaker, launched his ultra-pricey, ready-to-wear brand with a lift from high-altitude stilettos adored by many Hollywood celebs, including Noami Watts and Beyonce Knowles. It has 60 boutiques worldwide, including one in Orlando.

Dishing up digital

Digital signs made the switch to billboards and hang over the aisles in many discount stores and malls. Now a Tarpon Springs entrepreneur is marketing LCD screens small enough for restaurant tabletops and tourist rack brochure promotions.

H. R. Pruitt and his UpSale1.com will outfit a restaurant with LCD picture frames 5- by 7-inch or 8- by 10-inch to promote drink and food specials with eye-stopping high-resolution photo slide shows. The screens display any digital camera photo, can be networked and play music, too. Irvine, Calif., -based Digital Spectrum Inc. sold more than 1-million of this same device as family digital picture frames through discount stores and warehouse clubs. Pruitt struck a deal for volume discounts for hospitality industry applications.

Then he created a chest-high stand that fits by a tourist brochure rack and pedestals for restaurant tables and bar counters.

"Even small restaurants spend $2, 000 a year on printing," said Pruitt, 43. "We can set each table up for not much more."

What's next? Programmable digital menus? Well, yeah.

National retail ranking

Some observations from Stores magazine's latest annual ranking of the nation's 100 largest retailers.

- Sears and Kmart, which used to be the Nos. 1 and 2 retail companies, are now combined into one company that dropped a notch in revenues to sixth place as Sears Holdings Corp.

- Six Florida retailers made the list, led by Publix Super Markets Inc., which is 15th, one notch above McDonald's Corp. A shrunken Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. was 43rd, just below Starbucks, which sells as much stuff in 12, 000 little stores as the Jacksonville supermarket does in 522 big ones. Other Florida companies are Office Depot Inc. of Delray Beach, Darden Restaurants Inc. of Orlando, OSI Restaurant Partners Inc. of Tampa and IAC Retailing (HSN) of St. Petersburg.

- Costco moved up to fourth with $60.4-billion revenues and an industry-leading average store sales of $123-million.

- For the first time, no jewelry chain made the list, which required at least $2.9-billion in revenue.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.

[Last modified July 3, 2007, 23:08:02]