Why the focus on retail?

Ballys, Tropicana, NYNY, and Monte Carlo, to name a few, are planning additions to their property that mainly includes retail.

Am I missing something here but don't most people shop online or at a nearby mall? How is retail doing on the strip? Am I missing the demographic here?

In essence, why is there increased focus on retail?

 

I'm always in a shopping mood. Yes, I browse in the shops in the casinos and sometimes actually buy something.

What I don't understand, however, are the TONS of ultra-high-end places! I could NEVER afford that stuff and if I could I would certainly be shopping around for price and not buying at places in a casino.

 

I don't get it. We browse the shops and look around a bit, but we never buy anything. Our suitcases are always at capacity and I have never seen anything so amazing I couldnt buy it at home or order online at a better price. My GF and I both like to shop, but not while on vac.

 

There's also us foreigners that can get some things cheaper in the States than at home, but that's mainly outlet shops or run-of-the-mill department stores, not sure if the designer label shops are any cheaper than the same ones in London/Paris/Rome/etc.

 

The only shops I tend to frequent are the souvenir shops I have to admit. (I've got a nice collection of shot glasses)

I'm thinking that maybe the idea is that at 2am when you've had too much to drink and have already overspent your budget, you will let your defenses down and go buy something.

Or, you gambled $500 and took the Casino for $2,000. Now you can afford to buy your wife that necklace/dress/purse that she's been fawning over all weekend.

Or, since casinos do their best to attract the highest of the high rollers, they figure that if a billionaire and his wife are going to go somewhere on vacation it will be easier to bring in the High Roller and keep him at the tables if his wife has lots of shops to look around at.

Or, maybe since LV is already the gambling mecca, an entertainment destination, the fight capital of the world, and home to some of the greatest gourmet chefs on the planet, they just figure it makes sense to be the best place to go shopping also.

 

you gambled $500 and took the Casino for $2,000. Now you can afford to buy your wife that necklace/dress/purse
^^^^^^^^^
This here :evillaugh

It's IMHO , the casinos want your money one way or the other, you win big, and if you dont give it back at the tables, give it back by buying some over-priced impulse buy, you hit 50 cent Royal , Instead of McD's for lunch, you go to Gordon's at Paris

 

I don't understand this either. What can I buy in Las Vegas that I cannot buy cheaper at home or on Amazon or Walmart?
I don't go to Vegas to shop.

 

Sco's question did get me thinking.
Whenever a casino expands or renovates it is always with clubs, retail or restaurants. None of them ever increase their casino floor space. Is this due to NGC rules, or just a business decision that more slots wouldn't increase their profits more than a new sunglasses hut would?

 

Why, because people like retail on the Strip:

 

I really like the Tropicana layout. I think it will be a great improvement.
The bally's grand bazaar looks like a dude to me. I like to shop in Vegas at
places not near my home town. Crappy shopping I can do without. There are plenty of dumps along the strip. Hawaiian marketplace is one example that comes to mind.

Wife loves to hit the outlet mall and forum shops. So I say more retail is great provided they can attract decent retailers. I think we can all do without the excessive number of pharmacies popping up. Except for having more easy access to booze for hotel room.

If the strip construction keeps up like this, Vegas will set a new record for the number of Walgreens and CVS's in a continuous 4 mile stretch. I wonder if properties realize this will essentially put the hotel sundry shop out of business?!

 

I like to shop in vegas but i only go to the high end stores

I wont waste time going to gap ,h&m and the likes when i have all of those at home but we dont have any of those here( lacoste/michael kors is the top level at home)

On each trip i treat myself to something from Crystals+ some stuff from the outlets

 

I live in a small Canadian city and many of the stores in Vegas are a novelty as they just don't exist anywhere near I live. I like to shop and pick up things that I like that I know I can't get at home. Things like cigars and liquor are so ridiculously cheap in comparison, I always buy my duty free limit.

 

My girlfriend absolutely loads up on pretty much everything when she comes to Vegas. She can spend days in all the malls because the shops out here are either:

A) Different and much more accessible than in the UK
B) The same price in dollars as they are in pounds.

If I want to gamble, then I have to consider which is closest to Forum Shoppes etc which is why this time we're staying at Caesars so that she can shop relatively close to where I'll be gambling/staying.

 

The only thing I've ever bought on a trip to Vegas was a shirt.

On a drunk stroll through those cheapo shops at the Stratosphere on the way to the tower, me and my buddy saw the shirts. I can best describe them as like Hawaiian shirts but the print is all royal flush cards and roulette wheels- loud and obnoxious as you can get. We had to have them.

And yes we wore them for most of the remaining trip.

 

You won't save any money by shopping around for the high-end stuff. A Hermes bag at the Hermes store in Bellagio or Wynn cost the same as it would if you bought it in Chicago or NYC or whatever other large city that has the same high end shops. I personally have no want or need for that stuff but I'm also not the target demographic of those brands. The reason you see multiples of those stores in Las Vegas is because Wynn doesn't want you leaving his property if you don't have to(you might be tempted to spend money somewhere he doesn't get it). If you find it online for cheaper, I'd bet dollars to donuts you're about to get counterfeit(or stolen) product.

 

Any resort town you go to people are provided with shopping. It seems to be what we do and want.

Retail likely started as a sideline for the spouses and probably still is for many. Vegas wants to make it easy.

Considering how much quieter casinos are in the daytime, folks need something to do.

As a person from a small town, there is so much selection.

As a Canadian, this is double what I'd have in my size even in a large city. And your prices are lower.

Considering how much stronger many currencies like the Euro or pound are to the $US and the number of foreign tourists, it makes sense to provide easy shopping.

I couldn't understand the high end stores until comparing the prices in Europe. A strong currency makes them a bargain, albeit a rich person's bargain.

All that said, I don't shop much anymore.

 

People who enjoy shopping as recreation like to travel to shop even if they have all the same stores and products nearby. I will confess to doing it (but not in Vegas) not necessarily because I like shopping but because vacation sometimes is the only time I have to slow down enough to do it and not feel rushed.

That being said, all these projects reek of follow the leader. My hunch is that they will have a ton of repeated stores and won't have enough diversity to make them all successful. Sometimes the reason two shopping centers are able to coexist near each other is that you can only get to certain stores in one but not the other. I didn't hate the Bally's idea because I thought retail would be a way to transform their entryway the cheapest but the number of kiosks proposed makes me think many of their stores will repeat what you can find in Miracle Mile. I think the same will be true of the TI project. I don't hang south strip so I don't know what the Trop project is competing against but that one may have an easier time of it.

 

Exactly. The only time we go in any shopping in Vegas is to just look around. If we bought $100 of stuff in TOTAL from the past 10 times, I would be surprised.

But, apparently some people do.

 

There's also people from other countries to consider. Either it's different stuff from what they have at home, stuff that isn't available or it's cheaper. Other reasons mentioned are also valid.

 

I think it's fair to say that this board has has high number of frugal or value Vegas visitors and I'm not sure this board is a true representation of the overall Vegas visitor's demographics. Someone must be spending' money in those shops or the retail venues wouldn't fill-up as soon as they're open. (I know Crystal's still isn't full, before someone brings it up). My point is not everyone is looking for a free vacation, where they can spend as little as possible on everything other than gaming. Another example is that you seldom hear anything of a positive nature mentioned on VMB about the clubs in Vegas (and almost every casino has them), but go to some other sites and it's literally all they talk about. Vegas depends on a wide swath of visitors and demographics to stay in the black these days and just because most here wouldn't think of spending a grand (or more) on a purse, doesn't mean others don't.