Strategies to Improve Shopping Center Performance and Marketing

A successful retail shopping centre will feature a good selection of tenants that are carefully matched to the customer profile and the location. Within the tenancy mix those tenancies as retailers will be placed in clusters to create sales opportunity and vibrancy.

The retail vibrancy is something that encourages sales and customer interest. The tenancy mix is therefore a tuning strategy to make sure that the Customers are attracted to the property in an ongoing way.

(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)

 

Get the Retail Facts

Over time you want the customers to return to the property regularly and conveniently; so the tenants that you choose within the mix are really important to the factors of attraction with customers. To make all of this work successfully, consider the following concepts and questions in your retail marketing strategy:

 

  • Define your typical customer by type and by location. You will need to know exactly why they are coming to your property and at what frequency. That will then influence the tenants that you have in the mix in both sales and marketing. You will also be able to see how customer interaction and interest in the property can be improved and strengthened. Ultimately you want the customers to spend more time within the property at each visit. You want them to purchase goods and services without any limitation or hindrance. How can you make things easier for them?
  • Consider the design of the property and how customers move to it and through it. Look at the proximity of the car park in the property and the convenience of access to and from the car park to the shopping zones. How easy is it for customers to take shopping bags and goods back to their vehicles?
  • Look at the transport drop-off points, as well as the taxi ranks. Are these points well-lit and secure? Will customers feel safe as they use the transport drop-off points? You may be able to improve the transport drop-off points through better signage, pathways, lighting, and security devices.
  • Understand the practicality and convenience that applies to property access for all customers as they travel to and from your property. Look at the configuration of roadways and highways feeding into the location around the building perimeter. Can things be improved with better signage and or pathways?
  • The entrances to the shopping mall should be monitored for foot traffic; you can do that by using electronic digital counters across all of the doorways. In doing so you will soon understand the busier days of the week from a retail perspective and also the busier times a day. You will also see the trends that apply to customer visitations in leading up to and through the seasonal selling periods and community holiday times. That awareness will help you with your retail marketing strategies and budget.
  • Look at the marketing plan that applies to the property today. Can the plan be improved to encourage or improve customer attraction during the seasonal selling periods? When you look at the foot traffic numbers and the sales turnover figures for the property, you can directly relate that information back to the marketing plan and any marketing campaigns that may be underway. You will be able to see the effectiveness or otherwise of your marketing spend. There is really no point in spending precious marketing money without having some form of tracking mechanism for tracking the results that you achieve.
  • Assess the sales turnover figures for the property and within particular merchandise groups. Compare the merchandise groups for different times of year and through the different marketing campaigns. Look within the merchandise groups to compare sales turnover patterns.
  • Look for the strong tenants and the weak tenants, developing specific strategies in each case. A tenancy mix can always be improved through proactive analysis and marketing. Progressively weak tenants should be removed from the tenancy mix at the next opportunity or lease expiry. The strong tenants should be encouraged to expand within the property and relocate to positions where they can encourage customer sales and tenant mix improvement.

 

So there are many good things that you can do here when it comes to shopping centre performance, tenancy mix enhancement, and retail sales. Track the numbers and track the performance factors of the property.

 

Tune the performance of the retail property in a regular and ongoing way so that the tenants and the landlord can experience the best opportunities of retail sales growth and stability. In that way the market rental stabilise and the vacancy factors within the property reduce.

 

(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)

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