So Somerset is the big dog mall, right? On one side, Somerset, you know what I’m thinking about? For those of y’all that know that’s here in Michigan, that’s been to Somerset in the Metro Detroit area, do you know that Somerset is actually divisive? I ain’t gonna say racist. Somerset is so tripped out, right? It’s the last great mall here in the Metro Detroit area. It’s in the Troy, right? Right next to Birmingham, all of the very high end places, right? Somerset is divided by Big Beaver Road. So it’s a bridge, think of a bridge, right? That goes above the road and you have one mall over here and then you have the other mall on this side, right? So it’s a bridge that connects both malls or it’s one big mall, but it’s two different buildings, right? On one side, you have the regular mall, right? You got the foot lockers and the champs and the food court at the top and then you got the restaurants a little bit on the bottom.

And then there’s the Tesla store and the Apple store and all of the different places, right? And then you can go across the bridge and when you go across the bridge, that’s where all of the high end stores are, right? Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Saks, Versace, Balenciaga. So it’s two different spaces, right? So, you know, some people is, oh baby, you a window shop, mad at me. I think I know why, Canada Goose, right? All of those things are on the other side. So a lot of people will go over or they’ll valet park because they got valley parking at both but the bigger valley parking is over at the regular mall and then they’ll come up and take the bridge and go over to the other side, right? It is wavy, it’s dope Keisha cause you know that if you shop it on that other side you got Monday, you got Monday baby but Saks, the reason why I’m telling y’all this is because Saks is an interesting anomaly, right? Because you can actually go over to Louis Vuitton, you can go over to the Ralph Lauren store, you can go over to Bottega, you can do all of that stuff and then you can go over to Saks which it all leads over to Saks and it’s got the same thing, it’s got a Louis Vuitton store inside of Saks, right? You got the Prada, you got all of the different stuff and so Saks is a higher end mall or Saks is a higher end store but Saks is facing the same threats and its existence and I don’t think that Saks is gonna be here much longer.

Saks is facing the same problems and that they are now closing stores all across the United States of America, Chicago, everywhere. I don’t know if they’re actually closing a store over here in Metro Detroit but they’re closing stores because of a bankruptcy and them not being able to pay they debt. Again, make sure you guys hit a like for the algorithm, subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications. Fashion Show Mall losing a long time luxury department staple in that area, Saks Fifth Avenue which has been there since 1981 is set to close.

The parent company announcing it’s closing a handful of stores all across the country. Eight News Now reporter Aaron Arellano is live in the newsroom to tell us how this actually ties in with the broader economic impact for local retailers. Well, the president of the Retail Association of Nevada tells me he believes this closure is not a bellwether for luxury brands in the Valley but it does not necessarily help the other economic troubles the strip is facing. Well, a little bit of that was expected. Brian Wachter is the president of the Retail Association of Nevada.

He says the Fashion Show Mall losing a long time luxury brand like Saks Fifth Avenue is not surprising. So remember Fashion Show Mall is in Las Vegas. It’s right there on the strip. All right, it’s over there by Treasure Island and you know, a little bit further down it’s past Bellagio over by that. All right, before you get over to what is about to be the new Heart Rock Cafe or the Heart Rock Hotel and Conrad and all of that, right? Fashion Show Mall is right there in the middle of that.

This global has been dealing with some restructuring issues since they, you know, combined with Neiman Marcus. Other issues include filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy which the company announced in January. The Las Vegas Boulevard location is one of at least 20 closures announced so far this year across the country. Unfortunate that it’s, you know, happening in the Vegas Valley at this particular time. This particular time, meaning Las Vegas is economic troubles we’ve been reporting on for months. When we have tourist volume down and so the businesses that are used to serving the higher tourist volume are also down and so it certainly compounds it.

Although it was a Monday night towards closing time when I visited today, the store was not exactly packed with shoppers. Walker says there is no reason to believe situations like this are bellwethers for other luxury brands or department stores for the area. I don’t think the store closures themselves are really a bellwether of the Las Vegas economy. You know, we have a pretty consistently low retail vacancy rate. You know, we have new developments go. So again, I’m not gonna go into the actual bankruptcy. Maybe I will, depending on how the conversation goes.

You said, what do I think that it is? I think that it’s a combination of different things. And I think that there’s an opportunity here. I think that we’re resetting as a culture. And I don’t think that it’s just e-commerce. Listen bro, people that shop at a place like Saks are completely different than people that shop at Tommy Hill figure. I’m just throwing a name out there, right? Earlier in the show, you seen that I got a phone call from the lady that works at the Rolex store down in Miami. It’s an authorized, you know, Rolex store down in Miami.

And she says, Anton, oh my God, I got this new, you know, Day-Date, presidential, all platinum or whatever, right? And it’s a 36 millimeter. And I said, I don’t really do 36 millimeters. I do 40 millimeters and said, okay, well, when you come into Miami, I want to show you some stuff. I said, okay, cool. In DC, they have a Louis Vuitton store, right? In DC, when I go to DC, they have a Louis Vuitton store that it’s upstairs for special clients that they have the Pharrell collection and whatever is coming out new that’s not available to the regular people, right? In Houston, they have a Balmain store that I love.

It’s a sassy little black man that’s in there and he know how to pick out all of the dopest stuff and they reach out to you, right? There are people that will fly down to certain places to get certain things because they have a client list. The Gucci store here in Detroit. My guy got moved out to Somerset. He still reaches out to me and says, Anton, we got this new stuff, we got this new collection. Let me send you what I think is dope for you. People that have certain resources, when you’re in the Miami store, there are people that will fly in to get certain timepieces and they will spend 60, 70, 80, $90,000 in one city.

I personally believe, and this is just my thought. First of all, companies like these, Saks, Macy’s, Lord and Taylor before them, JCPenney’s before them, it doesn’t matter whether it’s high end or whether it’s low end, right? I believe that having a personal touch and having boutique stores that cater and understand their client’s needs is where the industry is going. Retail is never going away, all right? As much as people think that everybody shop at Amazon, I know we get certain things from Amazon, but when it comes to the shopping experience, you’re gonna have to have a client list, you’re gonna have to have people that come in and actually speak to you.

And so I think that this is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and people that bring forth certain products. There’s a fashion community, right? There’s a label whore community, there’s always going to be women that wanna shop, always women that want certain things, all of that, right? There’s a scene and there’s a group of brands that is not even normalized for the normal shopping community. When you talk about Chrome hearts and all of that, man, it’s probably 50 different brands that people are hip to that you may not even be familiar with that’s high end, right? They make a certain brand.

They’re in the Kith communities, right? They’re in the Supreme communities. They’re in the Chrome hearts communities, right? There’s in all of that. Soon as my daughter landed in Vegas, the first thing that she said is, oh, I gotta hit the Chrome heart store. Dad, we gotta go over to Caesars. Dad, we gotta go to this. We gotta go to that. Page 10. It’s a lot of this, right? And people want to actually go in person. They wanna feel the material. They wanna actually see it. They wanna touch it, right? So in-person interactions combined with a personable client list and you actually catering to the people that shop at your stores, right? I know girls that have a client list at the Rolex store here.

I know people that got a client list in Miami. I got two different stores that I fly back and forth to in Miami in order to get my timepieces. I just don’t talk about it no more visibly because I’m kind of moving differently with my brand, right? I got in different places down in Texas that I can fly to and go and get a timepiece that I’m looking for. And they got me on a list of certain things. So I believe that there’s an opportunity here where we had bigger box stores and large collection stores that would just try to order a bunch of stuff and then sell it on sale and all of that stuff.

I think that’s going away. I think that’s going away. I think that in-person stores with great client lists are places that are going to, you’re gonna see more individual brands whether they’re already well known, Gucci store opened up right here in downtown Detroit. There’s a lot of other brands that’s opening up in certain places. They’re gonna curate their collection based off of that, that demographic and that environment. And you’re gonna have more of a personal relationship. People are spending more than before, more than ever before on high-end brands, luxury, retail, all of that stuff.

When you have automakers, for example, and there’s a set of automakers, oh man, we can’t sell cars, oh man. No, the mass produced cars that doesn’t resonate with the consumer, they may not be selling. What you’re seeing nowadays, even in a retail space, whether you’re talking about cars or you’re talking about clothes, there is no middle. There’s extreme luxury this way and there’s super, we want it affordable, mass produced and we want it easily customizable. There’s a group of people that are saying that we want cars to be more affordable and then there’s a whole nother set of, group of people that are saying we want hypercars, supercars, Corvette Z01, Porsche 911, GT3RS, Lamborghini, Ferrari, SF90.

Challenger, Hellcat, TRX, sell like hotcakes. And then there’s no middle, the middle suffers. The middle is always gonna suffer. And then there’s, we want affordable, we want mass produced, we want it to get as cheap as possible, we don’t need all of that, we don’t need all of the add-ons, just let me get in the car and get to and from safely and give me my updates. So there’s an opportunity there. There’s a gap, there’s an opportunity there and if you’re not adapting, I believe that where we’re going is we’re going to go back to personal service, boutique, clientless, learning how to sell effectively, getting away from big box stores.

Because once I meet the people at the respective stores that actually give me that, they usually have me as a client for life and then they’ll send it to me. They’ll text it to me, hey, Anton, we getting these new pieces in, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And so they can shop for me or they can hand pick whatever it is, but they still are, I still have to have that in-person experience or maybe I’ll fly to them or they’ll mail it to me.

I think that experiences is going to be the true differentiator between whether you’re successful or you’re not successful. We’re moving back into the entrepreneurial age. We’re moving back into personable, being personal. In-person experiences are going to be every single time. You’re going to have to actually know your people. You’re gonna have to actually interact. Even in content creation, there’s always gonna be the big, big, big, big dogs. And then there’s going to be the stragglers and the hanger ons that can’t actually create for themselves and everything that they talk about is going to be based off of what somebody else is doing.

And the ones that are successful, the ones that want to be successful, I’m always going to be successful in content creation. I’m always going to be great in content creation. You know why? Because I understand the people. I know how to communicate effectively. I know my niche. I know my audience. I’m not even supposed to be breaking out with 1.3 million subscribers. But there’s more people every single day desiring for somebody to give them or can hold a conversation and have some form of substance that puts a completely different spin on the thing that they’re used to talking about.

So always, there’s always going to be a niche. Always. You have to figure out where you fit in. And it’s not just about opening up a store. It’s not just about opening up a grocery store. You have to open up a store that curates and speaks to your client base and why would they come and talk to you? We are the greatest opportunity ever. It’s the age of the entrepreneur. You just haven’t seen it yet. You don’t have the vision for it because Saks Fifth Avenue closing is a good thing, in my opinion.

What am I saying? It’s a good thing. Didn’t we want to get away from Big Box stores? Didn’t we hate Big Box? Didn’t we hate the fact that, oh man, where’s the customer service? Where’s this? Where’s that? Nobody knows your name. Just a regular sales associate? No, we want somebody to say, hey, Anton, how have you been? How’s the family? Oh my God, I got something specific. I know your style. I know exactly what you want. That’s what we said we wanted. Now, of course, you always gonna have online.

You’re gonna have the Amazons. You’re gonna have all of that stuff, right? You’re gonna have the Walmarts. You’re gonna have the Crowe’s. You’re gonna have the regular grocery stores. But what people are seeking is a unique experience. So, Saks is continuing to close stores throughout the United States of America. And I think that that’s a good thing. I think that that’s a good thing. [tr:trw].

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