How is Mall Culture Helping the Retail Brands?

If one sits down to compare the pictures of the lanes, cities and towns, everything there was one decade ago with the present, the significant difference will be the tall buildings, broader roads and a super market or malls.

These super markets and malls have replaced the traditional brick and mortar stores spread along the road with one tall building, accommodating all the domestic and international brands under one common roof.

The Indian retail industry accounts for over 10 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 8 per cent of the employment. India is the world’s fifth-largest global destination in the retail space.

India’s retail market is expected to nearly double to US$ 1 trillion by 2020 from US$ 600 billion in 2015, driven by income growth, urbanisation and attitudinal shifts. While the overall retail market is expected to grow at 12 per cent per annum, modern trade would expand twice as fast at 20 per cent per annum and traditional trade at 10 per cent.

India’s Business to Business (B2B) e-commerce market is expected to reach US$ 700 billion by 2020.

Here are some very vital points in which the mall culture has benefited the retail brands in India:

1.     Customer Availability:

Even on a dull day or during weekdays, when the entire population of the city or town is glued to their office seat and eyes on the computer screens, the mall still has customers such as college students or other people.

The mall never runs out of customers and it is an advantage for the retail brands, as they buy something or the other if they are in mall. If not big products, food court remains crowded as well as big bazaar or other fashion retail brands.

2.     Space Constraint:

If one has the money, the entire space can be bought and decorated, the main headache of finding a location and plant an entire store with planning as well as proper guidance is totally skipped.

The retail brands just buy the space, thus the registration and planting walls is done by the builder. Moreover the important thing is making space for parking too reduces as malls come with parking space.

3.     Safety:

One has to appoint security guard and yet the feeling of insecurity somewhat lingers as the hard earned money and the business is being left on someone else’s responsibility.

In case of malls, there are multiple security units installed for all the brands, the police also pays extra attention on the malls area as it becomes the centre of attention of the area, which was quite difficult in single outlet.

One can also keep an eye on the rivals and their strategy to attract more customers and revise his/her own strategies accordingly.

4.     Exposure:

If a startup retail brand happens to open his/her startup in the mall, he/she would be exposed to the work culture and can learn from other retail companies. Many a times he/she can take the advantage of the situation as well, for examples during festive sale or any other occasion, people are likely to flock into the startup store for trying out products.

Moreover a lot of advertising and event companies come to malls for their promotions and film stars too occasionally land up to market their movies and brands, this too will help people in getting partnership with the companies and getting promoted alongside.

Business is such a game, which requires more than 2 players or 2 sides, only buyer and seller are not sufficient, supplier, marketing, distributers and promoters also play important role in developing a brand from scratch.