JLL: Millennials Driving Big Changes in Retail

CHICAGO—Retailers across the US have been putting together plans over the last several years to restructure how they deliver their products, and between now and 2017, many will begin to implement those plans, according to Jones Lang LaSalle’s Fall 2013 Cross-Sector Outlook. Partly in response to the increasing importance of the millennial generation, the next few years will see a lot of development activity as retailers create “omni-channel retailing, the seamless integration of traditional retailing with the efficiencies of industrial supply chain management,” JLL researchers believe.

“I share the optimism because I’ve seen, behind the curtain, the type of strategic planning” retailers have done, said Kris Bjorson, JLL’s international director for industrial properties. He is also responsible for development and management of the firm’s Retail Distribution Service business. Seven out of ten retailers are “analyzing and defining their omni-channel strategy for 2015 to 2017 implementation,” according to the new JLL study.