The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Mall Retailers
March 18, 2008
Published in Ad News 8.02.08 - by Norrelle Goldring, Director – Strategy, Shopportunity
THE SHOPPER JOURNEY TO THE MALL
Whilst the number of shoppers visiting malls in small groups as a pure leisure outing is increasing, the majority of shopper trips to the mall are still destination based. That is, the shopper is going for a specific purpose or item, or set of purposes and items.
However, they’re also open to influence – nearly 90% of shoppers deviate (add to) their shopping list, regardless of whether the list is on paper on in their heads. So you have a good opportunity to ‘interrupt’ them once they arrive at the centre, with ‘while I’m here’ type reminders.
First and foremost however, you need to ensure that you get on their destination shopping list – to be the reason they’re going to the mall in the first place.
Below is a starter list of ‘habits’ of effective mall retailers in making themselves retail destinations vs their competitors.
HABIT #1: LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION
Be in the right place to optimise walk past traffic.
It’s all about footfall. You need to be in the main traffic flow areas. These include areas near carparks.
The rule of proximity applies. Stores located near a major or mini major (department stores, supermarkets, major chains with large store footprints) get more traffic, period.
Be in a precinct. For example, if you’re a fashion store you need to be in a fashion precinct or fashion store cluster. Competition actually DRAWS traffic. You’re better off being right next door to immediate competitors than away from them, as a clutch of stores all with a similar offer – eg shoes – become a shopping destination for that type of item. It’s no good being a shoe store but being located near all the services like banks and road traffic authorities.
You might not be able to influence your existing store position, but if your lease is about to expire or the centre is about to undergo renovations you should use this as an opportunity to review your store location in the centre. Get a hold of their new centre floorplans and identify your ideal location based on main traffic flows, proximity, and precincts.
HABIT #2: MAKE YOUR STORE A DESTINATION
Reduce reliance on impulse and browsing foot traffic. Ensure your store is a destination for the shopper for their shopping occasion – that they have already decided to visit your store for a specific purpose BEFORE they even set foot in the mall.
The rest of this article is devoted to ways to do this.
HABIT #3 (and 4, 5, 6, and 7…): CREATE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH MALL MANAGEMENT
Your absolute first port of call should be meet and get to know the mall’s marketing team, and make sure THEY know YOU. Get involved in any offer and voucher runs they may be doing. Support events they might run such as fashion parades. Get involved in campaigns they are planning. The more you proactively offer, the more preferential treatment you will receive and the more you will be their first port of call when they are planning an activity. It might sound obvious, but it’s amazing how many retailers don’t make the effort. And it doesn’t cost much. (And might even get you a better deal on your mall media and advertising).
Little things mean a lot. Giveaways work wonders. If your centre has hubs – eg fashion hubs, kids hub, food hub – make sure you’re there with a goodie bag of offers and small trinkets.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Get involved with the mall’s giftcard program. Mall management LOVE retailers who help with their centre giftcard programs and it’s cost effective to be involved. Come up with a prize, gift with purchase, coupon or other offer – it doesn’t have to be big or expensive.
HABIT #4: INVOLVEMENT IN CENTRE MANAGEMENT MARKETING CAMPAIGNS
Ensure you have a presence and better yet, an offer, in major gift guides the centre puts out. You may need to provide a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of stock for photo shoots, or it might cost you a few hundred bucks in redemptions of promo offers, but the traffic it drives to your store and the incremental sales resulting pay for it ten times over.
Become a consistent presence in any ongoing or long-running campaigns the centre may have, both with mall media and online (see below).
HABIT #5: MALL MERCHANDISING AND ADVERTISING
Options may include one or more of billboards and posters, banners, kiosks, toilet media, floor media, car park media, mall entrance media. Can be expensive, but is worth doing when launching your store or when your store has a major promotion going. You can amortise the cost by offering the centre a bundled deal to take up more than one media type for the duration of the promotion.
Mall media and advertising for retailers is best approached on a centre by centre basis – doing a total media package per centre – rather than on a most-centres-for-least-cost reach and frequency type basis.
HABIT #6: ONLINE MALL PRESENCE
Get involved in online campaigns by your centre or centre group. Because mall trips are fairly frequent, shoppers use centre websites to check out what’s coming up at their ‘local’. By having a presence on your mall’s website you are more likely to turn your store into a destination – rather than relying on walk past traffic – next time shoppers who have browsed the centre’s website visit the centre. Take out banner and click-through ads. Ensure you have online specific offers running that they can redeem when next in the centre (this will also help give you – and mall management – an idea of how effective their website is).
HABIT #7: EXTEND YOUR RETAIL SPACE
An additional store space – kiosk style – within eyeline of your current store can double your sales, particularly in key retail periods like Christmas where your core store may be too crowded to fit all potential shoppers. Yes you’ll need to pay additional rent, but you can mitigate this cost by offering the centre’s management a package deal on the combined rent.
To sum up, your approach needs to be both internal and external – to cover the bases with both traditional retail media and with the mall management for incremental opportunities to increase your destination shopper footfall and thus your sales.
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The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Mall Retailers