Brands getting ready to drive malls' business fortunes

Today, power lies with the mall owners when it comes to negotiating for space. This pure demand and supply led situation is likely to give way in the not too distant future as space supply eases to brands dominating the mall landscape and driving business fortunes.

This scenario is already partially visible in the fast-emerging retail scene in Bangalore with The Forum and Garuda malls vying for attention, footfalls and brands. To add to competition, a few more malls are in the pipeline like Sigma Mall and Sobha Mall.

Anticipating the new scenario, brand owners have begun to concentrate on creating fundamentally strong brands which do not merely link their survival to the footfalls generated by the malls but to strong recall, said Vikram Limsay, CEO & Principal Consultant, Helicon Consulting.

With more malls coming up, footfalls will be determined by convenience than destination. Presently, with not too many malls around, the early birds are attracting footfalls from a distance.

"Soon we shall see malls proliferating in various localities offering the convenience to customers almost in their backyard. Then the enthusiasm over malls coming up in the city will have subsided," said Limsay.

Mall culture is still in a nascent stage with each mall looking more or less similar to the other and each having an anchor store, food court and theatre, besides a host of shops.

"There is no clear position in the mind of the customer and he visits malls just as another destination, maybe for the novelty value. It is only a matter of time before malls start positioning themselves clearly," said Limsay.

To break this clutter, malls will move from all under one roof to vertically specialised malls, based on usage as well as users. This may lead to exclusive IT malls, building materials malls and lifestyle goods malls.

"Similarly there will be user-specific malls. We already have 'Eva' on Brigade Road -- a mall for women. We may have the same phenomenon with teenagers, children and others. There may also emerge malls only for luxury retail products," he added.