Gazoontite Ditches Clicks for Bricks

Retail Update... I loved the headline in the San Francisco Business Times, "Gazoontite takes some bricks and mortar to cure dot-com congestion" (Jul 28-Aug 3, 2000). Turns out that Gazoontite, which began life as a purely online business selling asthma and allergy relief products, laid off half its staff of 100 and dropped dot-com from its name. Remember this quote, "With the money it saves from cutbacks in online advertising and the elimination of most of its web site staff, the company plans to add 20 new retail outlets across the country to its four existing stores." Hey, the news gets better. According to the article, Gazoontite has enough cash from its $26.5 million venture funding "to last until early 2001."

Meanwhile, many building owners are headed in the opposite direction. Namely how to extend their brick-and-mortar presence into cyberspace. For example, Oxford Properties of Toronto just launched EMPORI, which combines "traditional and virtual retailing" for its tenants. Brandywine Realty Trust offers its e-Tenants service to provide business-to-business and concierge services.

And in the retail services area, Vectiv plans to launch its tool for strategic real estate procurement in early October. LOCATION-net matches properties and retailers based on common demographic and consumer lifestyle criteria. PlainVanillaShell combines the resources of the Retail Tenant Directory, the Shopping Center Directory and Demographics USA among others. TenantMix.com provides access to its nationwide retail tenant database. Finally, in stealth mode, RealStandard, based in Brooklyn, NY, (Who are these guys?) announces that they are building an "Internet Portal" for retail real estate. ... Whew, there's a lot going on.

PikeNet Expo... So naturally, we've added a Retail Parade to the PikeNet Expo at the New York Hilton, Oct 23-24, 2000. Sign up online now for the Early Bird Rate of $695. And check out the (preliminary!) list of speakers. ... Want to sponsor or exhibit at the Expo? Contact Eileen Circo.

--Peter Pike