The management vacuum holding back short-term retail
Short-term retail has moved from being an occasional leasing tactic to a structural component of modern asset strategy. Across shopping centres and high streets, landlords are allocating more space to flexible tenancy not only to activate vacancy, but to introduce emerging brands and build future leasing pipelines.
This shift is being driven by structural changes on both the brand and landlord side.
Globally, there are now over 30 million ecommerce stores, a figure that has grown rapidly over the past decade. Shopify alone supports over 5.5 million active brands, and industry research from Coresight Research shows that more than 60% of digitally native brands plan to open physical retail locations as part of their expansion strategy.
According to Savills, digitally native brands accounted for a growing share of new leasing activity across major retail destinations over the past five years, with many using short-term formats to test locations before committing to long-term tenancy.
At the same time, leasing models themselves are evolving. Research from CBRE shows that average lease lengths have declined significantly, with landlords increasingly incorporating flexible and short-term tenancy into long-term asset strategies. JLL reports that flexible retail formats including pop-ups, short-term leases, and incubator spaces are now considered a core component of tenant curation and asset activation.
Despite this alignment of brand demand and landlord strategy, short-term retail often remains difficult to scale operationally.
Most property operating models were designed around long-term tenancy. Leasing teams are structured to negotiate multi-year agreements, which historically averaged 10–15 years and still typically span 5–10 years today. Operational teams are optimised to support permanent occupiers, and asset management strategies are built around relatively stable tenant mixes.
Short-term tenancy introduces a fundamentally different operating dynamic.Instead of onboarding a small number of long-term tenants each year, flexible retail requires onboarding and managing a continuous pipeline of brands. Savills estimates that short-term and flexible retail turnover can be 5–10 times higher than traditional tenancy cycles, significantly increasing operational frequency.
Without systems designed for this model, the coordination required to onboard, manage, and monitor short-term tenants creates operational friction. This creates what can be described as a management vacuum. Responsibility exists, but ownership is fragmented. Leasing, operations, and marketing each play a role, but no unified infrastructure exists to manage flexible tenancy at scale.
As a result, short-term retail is often handled manually and reactively. Opportunities are managed individually, rather than as part of a structured pipeline. Performance data including footfall, sales, and conversion is rarely captured consistently. This limits its effectiveness as a strategic leasing tool.
This is particularly significant given the proven impact of physical retail on brand performance.
Research from Shopify and the International Council of Shopping Centers shows that brands opening physical locations often see ecommerce sales increase by 20–40% in surrounding areas, reinforcing the role of retail as a driver of long-term tenant growth. As the number of brands continues to increase and leasing strategies become more flexible, landlords are beginning to recognise that short-term retail is not simply a leasing activity. It is an operational model.
Dedicated systems are emerging to centralise brand pipelines, streamline onboarding, and provide visibility across availability and performance. This allows flexible tenancy to function as a repeatable and scalable component of asset strategy, rather than an administrative exception.
Flexible retail is no longer defined by duration, but by infrastructure.