Shopping center visitation declines by at least one-third in July and August while the visitor-to-buyer conversion rate drops by 10-35%. However, many malls have learned to make money in the off-season as well. Zhanna Karapetyan spoke to the journal CRE Retail about this issue.
“Leasing out the common areas, organizing marketing events with companies that are not represented at the retail center, never forgetting about your tenants, keeping a step ahead of the market, loving your own project – all of this together gets the job done and produces results,” advises Zhanna Karapetyan, a property manager at RD Management.
GRAVITATIONAL POINTS IN SHOPPING CENTERS
At the Dream House shopping center it’s not food supermarkets that serve as anchor tenants but rather the summer verandas, which serve as a magnet for visitors. “Since the retail center is situated outside the city, we strive to offer visitors a wide variety of services, making their leisure time as diverse as possible,” Karapetyan explains.
This year Dream House has two outdoor verandas, one of which is hosting a children’s camp while the other is occupied by the restaurant Bocconcino. In parallel, from July 1 to July 31, the shopping center is hosting a Home Improvement Studio offering master classes for the whole family on such activities as pottery, glass drawing, interior décor and gardening.
“You can always draw parallels between what we are doing at Dream House and what our colleagues are doing around the world. However, simply copying foreign experience is not effective. Russian property owners must adapt foreign experience to suit their clients and their tenants,” the expert emphasizes.
Find out more by reading the article “Prolonging Summer” in the latest issue of CRE Retail.