In a bid to increase footfalls, malls have begun revamping layouts based on consumer preferences to premium brands that have taken precedence over mass brands.
Consumers have been increasingly ditching mass brands for premium products and many malls are actively addressing these issues by re-allocating premium spaces.
Don’t be surprised if malls wear a premium look in your next visit. Mass brands are now being booted upstairs and are being replaced by premium brands!
“If you have discounted brands on the ground floor then the quality of footfalls automatically goes down,” said an industry observer.
Earlier the malls just got into a nine-ten year lease agreements and never quite cared about the kind of brand that occupied premium spots. Now the realisation has come in and developers are being forced to change the current store mix. Rs Rs For instance you can’t have an Apple and Bata store on the same floor,” he added.
Industry experts feel the move is primarily because anchor stores on the ground floor are major crowd pullers and premium brands are scattered across the mall.
Among others, Infiniti Mall in Andheri, Mumbai and DLF Saket Mall in Delhi have already begun the exercise of lining up premium brands including global one on the ground floor.
Developers explain that under-performing malls were the ones rejigging layouts by bringing premium brands to the ground floor.
Mukesh Kumar, vice-president of Infiniti Mall, feels layouts improve looks of the mall and make shopping less cumbersome. “For instance if you are the kind of shopper who likes to shop at Zara then it makes sense to have brands like Mango, Forever 21 etc next to each other.” Infinity Mall, in addition to relocating value brands, is also giving a higher weightage for international women’s brands.
In some situations, brands that have not been performing very well have also been asked to cut the store sizes. For instance, Liberty Shoes was asked to cut its store size in Inorbit, Malad. “The developers had asked us to reduce the store size to make the store more profitable and it has worked well as the rentals came down too,” explained Anupam Bansal, executive director of Liberty Shoes.
An Assocham survey done in December last year, pointed out that more than 47% of the malls in the top nine cities in the country were vacant. In fact, a few malls have started renting out spaces and shops to offices or coaching classes in order to improve rental incomes.
One of the top reasons responsible for a mall to non-perform includes unplanned store mix. That should explain the extra effort by managements to change the mall layout.
Dwindling footfalls
An Assocham survey done in December last year, pointed out that more than 47% of the malls in the top nine cities in the country were vacant.
A few malls have started renting out spaces and shops to offices or coaching classes to improve rentals.
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