Indian Malls - Retail Graveyards

First of all, I must confess that I have not seen many of the malls in India and also I don't have much information about the new projects that are coming up. But in all that I have been able to see so far, most of the malls in this country have nothing than can hold the interest of the shoppers there. Most of them are a endless number of shops laid out in a cuboid.

Malls can be destinations that people visit to spend their time, having fun, spending time in a structured manner. The shortcomings of most of the malls that I have seen is that there is an unbelievable amount of stress that has been laid on selling out space to the retailers. There is a greater degree of loyalty and customer satisfaction that can be drawn out of leaving spaces empty as against giving it away to the retailers. This is a fact that very few developers understand. People coming to a place that is supposed to be a destination, where they might spent an entire day don't want to be thrust from one shop to the other when they are there. They would look for places where they can actually hang out!

There is also a huge retail mix available in the mall; mall developers do not wait to think that retail is not the only offering that people are looking forward to. Having things in a mall that allows people to amuse themselves with (with or without a revenue generating aspect to it) is very important. The mall should be very engaging and should permit the shoppers... no no; the visitors (let us not see them as just shoppers; they may or may not shop) to enjoy their time in various activities in the mall. Having a rock climbing wall, a fancy barbecue on the terrace, roller coaster, etc. are different ways of creating engagement devices for the shoppers. These are extremely important to keep a mall alive.

STORIES - People love stories and even more so they love to tell stories to other people. In such a case don't you think that every mall should have a story of its own. Giving a theme and an exciting story behind the theme is very important to excite people about a mall. It also helps secure an individuality for the mall. It is extremely important to give a character to a mall in order to have a presence for it which is everlasting.

At present developers are just constructing spaces where they put as much retail as they possibly can. These spaces are extremely impersonal and have nothing remarkable about them. These malls don't have an individuality or character that separates them from the rest. The trend that I notice at present is only going to result in the malls of today becoming the retail graveyards of tomorrow. When something bigger and better comes along the crowds will just shift to the better option and the malls being built now are going to just fade away very fast.