Observation from travelling through many Shopping Centres’ sees a lack of centre management presence on the retail floor. Retailer feedback suggests they see centre management only if there is an issue or the leasing executive at renewal time. Retailer presentation, in particular kiosks and casual mall leasing is not consistent and not reflective of what was approved during the design process. The presentation over time deteriorates with site lines impacted and clutter collecting on counters etc. all taking away from the retailers initial vision. Centre furniture moved by cleaners not put back in the right place and quite often casual mall leasing/ pop up shops impacting the traffic flow, often with poor visual merchandising.
Monitoring these issues, understanding and engaging our customer, engaging with the retailer and our supplier partners not only improves our credibility as managers but in turn reduces paperwork and reporting as experience tells us, many of these matters end up being resolved through this process.
Understanding the sales and traffic performance together with experiencing it “hands on” in the marketplace is essential. It is disappointing that this is a diminishing practice, I have experienced this throughout various organizations and it is a criticism of our industry in general. Send an email, send a text….we are too busy to engage.
Good management practice in shopping centres, that could also be applied to other asset classes would be the following;
