The mall mystery

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Gold the most preferred investment

: footfalls.

In addition to the obvious business reasons, the shoppers are from the suburbs and the secondary towns. Increasing urbanisation has definitely pushed organised retail deeper into the country. People in established cities have moved out to vast sprawling suburbs.

These suburbs have broken free of the gravitational pull of the cities and now exist in their own world far beyond. Now you have a tribe of people who not only don’t work in cities, but don’t commute to cities or go to movies in cities or have any contact with urban life.

An increasing demand for residential growth and shifting of office space to these suburbs is another factor, which has fuelled the development of the shopping arcades. The NRI population has definitely brought in the need for the leading brands and style into these shopping destinations. Therefore, it goes without saying that there is a need to build and maintain these malls at global standards.

It is not just numbers, but the conversion rate that is an added attraction in these smaller markets. The so called new breed of malls will have facilities that were lacking in the earlier malls. Developers will give priority to determining factors like parking, mall design and soft strategies like customer relationship to make these malls work.

It is imperative that developer’s position malls correctly to attract the right tenant mix and differentiate themselves from their counterparts in the city or other suburbs. Taking the revolution further is very important to define growth in this sector and all mall developer who have put their money in these smaller kitties will wait for the big gain.