A great retail space for your business needs to be the right type of space in the right location. The previous portions of this article addressed location. This section will address options for the type of retail space.

Some purchases are made on impulse and other purchases are made after careful planning. Retail for the carefully planned shopping will be termed destination retail. Starbucks is a great example of an impulse purchase. You see a Starbucks location and decide to pullover and have a coffee and perhaps a pastry. Have you noticed how Starbucks almost always has incredible locations?

If they are in a shopping center, they're almost always in an end-cap location. If they are part of a larger shopping plaza, they typically have the best a location within the shopping plaza. If the retail space you are seeking involves impulse purchases, you should see prime space. Great visibility and great access are both important. Even though it will be painful, you probably need to pay for the very best possible location.

If you are seeking retail space for destination retail, an incredible location is not necessary. You need to be in the right area but you do not necessarily need the finest location within the shopping center. Almost all destination retail has a convenient location with good visibility. While access is a factor for destination retail, it is much less important in comparison to impulse purchase retail.

Anchored retail space has a retailer who generates an amount of traffic. The anchor is typically a larger store or perhaps even a set of larger stores. A grocery store is the anchor for most neighborhood shopping centers. Department stores have typically been the anchors for regional malls.

Shadow anchor refers to a shopping center (typically a strip shopping center) which has a mall by virtue of being proximate to a major retailer. Target, Wal-Mart, Sands, Costco and IKEA are all stores which would be good draws for a shadow anchor shopping center.

End-cap is the space at the end of a shopping center, typically at the end of a strip center.

In-line space is space in a shopping center which is not at the end. In other words, it is space between the two ends of the shopping center.