Fighting Amazon—How Malls Can Reboot Shopping Experiences People Want, Stephen Yalof - CEO Tanger

With Amazon and online shopping exploding in popularity, with new habits formed and accelerated during the pandemic, brick-and-mortar stores are at yet another turning point to regain relevancy. It is now a common sight to drive around towns in North America to see malls and outlet centers slowly hollowing out, becoming something else, or a place for mall walkers to get some steps in.

One company rebooting the outlet mall experience in a big way is Tanger, a leading operator of upscale shopping centers across North America. Although this company has been around for 30 years, in the last 4 years alone they have been on a post-covid bounce back and are now valued at over $3B.

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles, Tanger CEO Stephen Yalof gives us a behind-the-scenes tour of how he’s rebooting the company—and competing in the ever-growing digital age. Listen in as we unpack changes being made to bring shoppers back into brick-and-mortar stores, shifts in consumer behaviors, and some advice for young professionals looking to make an impact in the retail economy.

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Getting People Out Of Their Houses And Into Stores

One of the predominant effects of COVID-19 lockdowns, as many physical stores closed up shop, was people reduced physical IRL shopping habits. When stores started to re-open, there was a push to get people back into stores. One of the main ways Tanger has been doing this is by re-imagining shopping centers into gathering centers. Making these spaces more than just a place to shop,? and more adjacent to a town square. As Stephen puts it people “can park their car, they can get together outdoors, they could shop, they could eat, and they can enjoy some entertainment.”

Finding An Edge Over E-commerce

Just turning these outlets into gathering spaces isn’t all that Tanger is doing to compete with the digital retail space. The other way that Stephen is staying competitive with online retailers is through the products they are selling and the stores they are promoting. Stephen mentions that online shopping is “easy to buy products that are repeat products, things that you know exactly what you’re going to get”. On the other hand, some products are better to buy in person, “whether it’s a pair of shoes or clothing, even jewelry”, the products that you want to try on before you purchase.

Advice For Young Professionals

Stephen has been in the retail or retail adjacent industry for years, having previously worked at Ralph Lauren in their Real Estate department and then moving to Simon Premium Outlets as their CEO. With this long, successful career, we wanted to know what advice he would give the younger generation. Stephen mentions that he gets this question a lot, and he says “Don’t be afraid to try a bunch of things.” Most industries are pretty big and have a lot more to offer than you may see on a surface level, and trying those other avenues and asking yourself “What part of this industry do I like?” is the best way to find the career for you.

About The Show

The Reboot Chronicles Show is a popular business podcast highlighting the world’s top leaders and CEOs through engaging peer-to-peer conversations that audiences love.

The show is available wherever people listen to or watch podcasts, with thousands of listeners, watchers, readers, and fans who turn to the platform for insights from top leaders who are rebooting everything from their industry and organization’s competitiveness to growth, innovation, technology, talent, culture…and more.? Reboot’s entertaining CEO conversations also provide audiences rare behind-the-scenes views of their personal and professional challenges—with actionable lessons on how listeners can reboot their organization, their career, and their life.

Tune in wherever you get podcasts or here: https://rebootchronicles.com/

About The Host

A WSJ Best-Selling Author, Forbes Contributor, and frequent media guest & speaker, Dean DeBiase is the Executive Producer and Host of The Reboot Chronicles Show, a top leadership podcast that has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, celebrities, and world leaders—unpacking their untold behind-the-scenes stories to help audiences transform their organizations and themselves.

Named “Growth Guru” by Inc., Dean is an award-winning Silicon Valley serial CEO who has led dozens of public and private organizations through diverse operating environments—creating hundreds of products, thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars of revenue, value, and capital.

Dean is a trusted advisor to CEOs and boards, helping emerging-growth companies increase their value, and scale toward IPO optionality, by tackling their most challenging issues, seizing emerging market opportunities—and developing new customers, partners, and ventures.

His award-winning Dancing with Startups Program, brings Fortune 1000s and scaleups together around the globe to accelerate growth, by leveraging global relationships with corporations, executives, thought-leaders, and emerging organizations, to co-create expansion initiatives, new ventures, and M&A.

Dean has an inclusive engagement-culture leadership style that attracts, builds, and inspires multi-generational/multi-national teams to be first-to-market leaders. His Reboot teams have been recognized for rapidly scaling organizations and producing industry-shaping products, services, and brands across sectors—that transformed industries, economies, and societies.

Connect with Dean here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/keynotespeaker/