As many traditional retailers move aside to make way for hands-on experiences such as slime, colorful ball pits, Instagram-friendly photo ops and chef-driven food halls, one Chicago company plans to open its first store selling a decidedly old-school offering: red wagons.
After 106 years in business, Radio Flyer this week disclosed plans to open its first store, to be located in Chicago’s northwest suburbs.
The 15,000-square-foot shop is expected to open in November within the massive Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois, the company said in a statement. The shopping mall, owned by Simon Property Group, is one of the largest in the Midwest.
Radio Flyer, known by generations of wagon and bike riders, may seem like an unexpected entrant into today’s ever-changing retail landscape.
The products date back to a time when the radio and airplane were still relatively new inventions, inspiring the Radio Flyer name for Italian founder Antonio Pasin's new company.
The modern shopping world is shifting away from big department stores and other longtime retailers toward concepts such as the slime-oozing Sloomoo Institute, photocentric Museum of Ice Cream, art-centered Color Factory and Camp’s ticketed experiences.
Pullbacks by department stores and other big, traditional retailers have left many mall owners to add new elements such as apartments and medical offices. Many online retailers are staking out their first shops.
Changing shopping habits have left some of the nation’s top retail avenues, including Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, in a period of tremendous change.
Consumers’ thirst for something different also has caused food halls, once only found in the largest cities, to emerge in new places such as the suburbs, college campuses and large shopping malls where chain-focused food courts once were the norm.
Yet Radio Flyer envisions creating a retail experience all its own, moving into hands-on retail so it can introduce new generations to its trusty wagons, tricycles and bicycles, as well as new products such as electric bikes.
The Woodfield Mall store will sell more than 60 products, with a test track for products such as go-karts and scooters. The shop also will offer customization of products such as wagons, test rides of kids’ bikes and e-bikes for adults, a bike shop and a service center for repairing products.
Until opening its first store, a plan first reported by Crain’s Chicago Business, Radio Flyer has sold its products through other retailers’ shops and online.
Within Woodfield Mall, Radio Flyer will be neighbors will long-established mall retailers such as Foot Locker, Macy’s, JCPenney, Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, Apple, Claire’s, Eddie Bauer and Lego Store.
“Our hope is that this will be the first of many store locations for Radio Flyer,” Chief Wagon Officer Robert Pasin said in a statement.
His grandfather, Antonio, moved to Chicago from Italy in 1914 and began the company three years later.
When he arrived in Chicago, he rented a one-room workshop where he built phonograph cabinets, according to a Radio Flyer blog post. He liked to tinker and eventually came up with the idea for a coaster wagon, which he sold to local hardware stores.
The rise of the auto industry in the 1920s led Pasin to change his wagon material from wood to steel, the blog post said. That earned him the nickname “Little Ford.”