This year we will be highlighting differentiated retailers that are expanding and that produce very strong unit economics and traffic. As many of these retailers are privately-owned, we will also compare them to public comps to provide context; these comps are not from the consumer, or brand, perspective, but from the CRE’s perspective. This week’s name is Altar’d State which is at 138 locations and expanding at roughly 20 new locations per year. We estimate that its locations (which average roughly 6,000 square feet) produce around $3M in sales (representing $470 per square foot) and for street-facing, single-level locations (i.e., where Placer.ai can measure foot traffic), they produce traffic that is comparable to Anthropologie and ahead of Athleta and Lululemon.
Altar’d State attracts a highly coveted customer – younger, stylish, and affluent that is purpose- focused and spirited. Its stores are highly stylized, similar to Free People. The growth in traffic per location since 2018, is similar to Lululemon and is converging on the average location traffic of an Anthropologie – a brand that Altar’d State’s seasonality tracks closely. Since November 2019, the top-10 Altar’d State locations have outperformed their center’s traffic by 21 ppts. Moreover, on a same-center basis, Altar’d captures nearly the same level of traffic that Anthro and Sephora capture.
Our full anaylsis can be found here. Please reach out to us if you would like to discuss further.