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Friday, October 06, 2017, 12:42
Finding niche - say, culture, history - key to China retail centers' future
By Zhu Wenqian
Friday, October 06, 2017, 12:42 By Zhu Wenqian

This summer, consumers are reading books at a mall in Shanghai; a shared bookstore is among the offerings at the retail center. (WANG GANG / FOR CHINA DAILY)

While traditional shopping malls are facing big challenges due to the impact of online shopping and changing consumer behavior, those that can develop niche markets to meet the tailored demand of consumers might actually see new opportunities.

There are large amounts of space available inside most shopping malls, and that space can be used for more types of business operations--say, parties or areas for business negotiations and dating - -to strengthen the malls' social functions, industry analysts said.

CapitaLand, one of Asia's largest real estate companies, plans to launch the Beijing-based shared-workspace startup UR Work, a rival of WeWork, into its malls.

So far, CapitaLand has introduced such working spaces into its mall in the Wangjing area in northern Beijing, and it said customer experience and innovation remains key to brick-and-mortar business.

"Introducing co-work spaces into shopping malls helps them become more open and flexible. It will better meet the demand of the new generation of consumers," said Wong Car Wha, general manager of North China Capita-Land Mall Asia.

Neil Wang, China regional president of market research agency Frost& Sullivan, said shopping malls could launch more functions such as marriage registration, metro card recharging, events rooms for the elderly and psychological counseling centers.

"Adding those functions inside the malls ... could efficiently utilize the fragmented time of consumers, and maximize the economic and social benefits of malls. By creating unique consumer experiences and interesting topics, malls could carry out relationship marketing and emotional communications with consumers."

With fierce homogenized competition, the diversity of consumer demand requires the differentiation of management, brands and services.

The Shanghai Xintiandi shopping mall, for example, has been representative of what some are calling "scenic business". The mall fuses history, culture, shopping and leisure together, as it integrates the traditional and modern buildings of Shanghai into the same complex.

Beijing's Parkview Green, a complex that includes offices, a shopping mall, an art center and a hotel, has been able to maintain a leading market performance with its notion to encourage green practice in the building and its strongly artistic atmosphere.

"It's more because of its brand scarcity. More than 50 percent of the brands in the mall launched their first stores in China or in Beijing at Parkview Green."

"Some luxury brands, such as Alfred Dunhill, Van Cleef & Arpels, IWC and Roger Dubuis, have played an important role in attracting more customer flows," Wang said.

"By introducing more scarce brands, the malls could improve their differentiated managements and enhance the identifiabilities, thus could attract more customers."

zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn

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