How entrepreneurs and mall owners can benefit from POP- UP retail concepts?

Physical shops aren’t dead as yet and they shall never perish, with time they shall evolve. The pop-up shop is a current trend which mall owners or Landlords cannot afford to ignore in the Middle Eastern markets. 

There is a saying that “Future belongs to those who embrace change with both open arms”.

My inspiration to write this article comes from my 5 years old son’s purchasing habits i.e. he immediately starts browsing for toy shops as soon as we enter any mall or shopping centre. 

I once told him that Toys R Us worldwide is closing to which he immediately replied that he shall now start shopping from smaller toy shops or discount centres & closure of giant Toy retailer would not hamper his love for toys.

This reinstates my understanding that “It does not matter how big or good you are, you can always be replaced”. With the closure retail toy store giant, there is a huge opportunity for smaller toy brands or suppliers/manufacturers to enter and do things in more digital savvy manner.

Pop-up retailing is such a trend that provides a platform for such small entrepreneurs to try and test the market with their products or services prior to entering an unknown territory. It’s a $50 Billion segment in the USA alone.

As per Retailscope research in 2016, 52% of the people surveyed believe that pop-up stores are an effective way of discovering new brands. It is also a way for young brands to physically meet their customers and to activate word-of-mouth promotion.

Even luxury brand Louis Vuitton, for example, has just opened its first pop-up store in Italy, the aim being to rejuvenate its image and test new retail places, in order to explore new possibilities. This confirms the effectiveness of Pop-up stores in modern retailing.

Advantages of Pop-up shops are:-

•         They create market buzz.
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•         Low risk as the overheads are limited.
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•         Helps in testing new retail environments.
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•         Help brands reach where their customers are.
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•         It provides extended reach to established brands for generating awareness and for introducing the idea of concept selling.

Advantages for Mall owners to encourage pop-up stores:

•        Drives newness to the mall by short-term leasing of pop-up stores.
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•         Mall participation in encouraging entrepreneurs and first-time retailers to try out the physical retailing.
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•         Driving a cultural change by bringing & creating an ecosystem for nurturing startup pools. You never know, this first-time retailer might end up as one of your permanent tenants and result in the creation of multi-million dollar segment.
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•        Optimum utilization of vacant stores or spaces to generate some revenue as well as combine it with mall’s CSR initiatives.

Case study: “Tell a story”- trailer bookstore on the move.

Brand want to tell its customers more about journey of a book. “Tell a story” has a very simple concept: a bookstore in a van, driving around Portugal to promote national literature all over the country.

Purpose: Brand wanted to defeat language barriers and allow the world to catch a glimpse of the wonderful tales of the Portuguese literature which were missed out because nobody translated them in English.

In this van, roaming the streets of Portugal, tourists will discover Portuguese classics translated into English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. “Tell a story” envisions books as a living soul, not meant to be tucked away in a lonely corner, but rather enrich the mind of human beings. 

Van “guests” can also buy pens and postcards to write their own stories.

Embracing technology: Van also features e-books and access to e-commerce sites wherein the customers can browse and download or place an order for the titles which are not available in the van.

I would be more than glad to discuss my learnings which I have acquired by closely following pop-up retailing with any of my retail fraternity member or entrepreneurs willing to enter into physical retailing in the Middle East market, thus helping my Retail sector to grow beyond boundaries.

I can be reached at riteshmohan@yahoo.com

Remember “For those who dare to dream, there is the whole new world to win”.

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development and Brand management, Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

It’s time for Retail Renaissance and not Retail apocalypse!! - How mall owners can help their tenants?

The Retail apocalypse! - is the buzzword that I hear very often within my Retail fraternity & in Retail forums while talking to brand owners as well as landlords (mall developers).

Let me for a second give it a new dimension i.e. instead of calling apocalypse, let’s view it as an interesting times, a renaissance which is going to push both retailers and landlords to their limits to re-invent & re-engineer themselves for brighter future.

Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over & over again and expecting different results”.

This statement holds true in all kinds of businesses including retail and my article is my sincere attempt in pointing out as to how Landlords (mall owners) can utilize current retail challenges to their advantages

Few Main Challenges being faced by retail sector:

a)    E-commerce is posing a severe threat to mall’s footfalls resulting in overall traffic drop which reflects in category decline in spends.

b)   Competition from other malls as they try to lure tenants/brands with attractive rent free period options in order to retain tenants in their malls.

c)    Small retailers are shutting down, bigger ones are not expanding and new brands are being very cautious to enter the market in the current scenario. They prefer playing wait & watch a game.

d)    Striking a good merchandise mix balance in maintaining a good brand/tenant mix within the mall despite various brand’s shop closures.

As a basic premise to deal with any challenges is to have forward looking & positive mindset. Consider current scenario as Retail Renaissance i.e. the natural evolution of life and business. If stores can’t adapt to changing trends and technology, they will die of natural causes.

If malls fail to impart an exceptional customer experience which millennials desire then they would too fail. Oftentimes, you walk out of the stores empty-handed, frustrated, and feeling like you just wasted your time. These mass experiences with mediocre customer service are exactly what we are trying to get away from!

Instead, World is moving towards personalized experiences that are tailored to our every need.

How Landlords can help retailers/ brand owners?

a)    Collaborative partnership: Gone are days wherein landlord and tenants used to meet only at their annual day gatherings, today time demands them to become partners with their tenants and understand their problems by being brand’s partner in crime. Today mall’s manager needs to spend time with their tenants in their stores and understand the key issues pertaining low sales and low feet-ins. Become brand’s partner and consider yourself as an extension of Brand’s marketing team.

b)   Using data analytics to resolve tenants/brand’s issues: Most of the tenants are contractually bound by submitting their monthly sales to malls regularly, this data is generally discussed at the time of lease renewal or negotiation meetings.

How many landlords are using this information of daily, weekly sales to help their tenants to come up with a collaborative approach to resolve issues or take corrective action?

c)   Convergence is the buzzword & to play a pivotal role:

Historically the business model for the shopping centre industry has been to connect consumers and retailers physically. It was the retailers’ job to convince consumers to buy something. That model is shifting as a result of technology. 

The real estate owner or mall developer now has a large part to play in connecting the retailer and consumer both physically and digitally, and to do that mall would need a direct relationship with the consumer.

According to the Fung Business Intelligence Centre, “Showrooming” — the practice of researching a product in the store but buying it online — gets plenty of attention, but recent studies suggest it is far less common than “Web-rooming,” which entails researching a product online and then purchasing it in a store.

In fact, 90 percent of all U.S. retail sales still occur “within the four walls of a physical store,” according to a report by management consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

Case study: Westfield, London.

I would like to quote an example of Westfield London who has created a lounge for COLLECT PLUS, (mall’s initiative wherein the partnered tenants/brands offer their merchandise or discounts which are purchased by online customers and they come to collect the same from the mall.

Perfect example wherein Mall has partnered with brands and helping them reach out to online customers.

The current lounge of “CollectPlus” is the result of Westfield’s initiative which they undertook in 2011, by launching an online mall (and later a mobile app) with 150 stores, 3,000 brands, and over 1 million products.

Driven by the knowledge that 60 percent of the 1.1 billion annual shoppers in its malls use mobile devices, Westfield also created a research lab located in San Francisco, with the mission of finding technology applications and services that can further enhance the retail experience for both shoppers and retailers.

d) Adoption of technology to dominate Leadership stance:

Installing Beacons in the Common Area of Shopping centre: Most of the mall owners & shopping centres have embraced mobile apps, they can install beacons to identify hot and cold zones within their malls and share useful insights with their tenants to increase their sales.

The mall could also roll-out digital directories and concierge services that help mall visitors find their way around properties, locate deals and get information about events. Indeed, new technology is empowering mall owners and retailers like never before.

A prominent leading group, owning malls in KSA (Arabian centres, part of al hokair group) uses mobile phone tracking data through its apps to identify hot and cold spots in their malls and works closely with their tenants in those areas to improve their sales.

In the end, I would like to end my article with an extension of Brand promise which Majid Al Futtaim (leading mall developer) group makes and that is 

“Create a place that will become the centre of people’s lives”.

I think this sentence sums up the key message of the above article beautifully.

I would be more than happy to share my wisdom with any member of my retail fraternity who would like to seek my advice on their journey to make their retail venture more customer-centric. I can be reached at riteshmohan@yahoo.com.

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 20 years in the Retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development and Brand management, Retail Operations, Sales Management and Franchising & Business Management. He strongly believes in empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.

How to become successful by changing your habits?

I am writing this new article from my personal experience wherein a close friend (I shall not disclose the name due to privacy issues) was made redundant from his company, having worked for over 10 years in the company. The situation and circumstances initially made him so nervous that he went into his dormant circle & isolation, never willing to come out & meet friends nor go out actively searching for a job. Basically, he had accepted his failure as his destiny.

This raised a question into my mind, do your habits and actions actually define your personality which in turn decides whether you are a fighter or loser, who is willing to give into the circumstances without even putting a tough fight.

 Thankfully a couple of my friends were able to convince this friend of mine & we stood by him in his hour of crisis & today he is happy having started his own venture and has now got a couple of job offers as well.

So how did my friend manage to bring change…

The answer sounds simple but requires consistent coding of mind by changing our habits, by focusing on our key strengths, by building resilience to failure or any negativity.

Mahatma Gandhi once quoted:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words, 
Your words become your actions, 
Your actions become your habits, 
Your habits become your values, 
Your values become your destiny.” 

How many of us are living our lives like any robot i.e. we get up early to get out of bed to work, our morning routine, we dress, walk, exercise, interact with others and come back to home feeling tired, deprived of sleep and again we repeat the same cycle till LIFE throws a challenge at us & we are caught unaware as to how to tackle it.

THESE ARE NOTHING BUT HABITS & THESE HABITS GOT YOU TO WHERE YOU ARE TODAY…...

 How to change Habits to become successful?

1)  Have high positive energy & Build enthusiasm.

2)  Determination: Always remember, where there is a WILL, there is a WAY. Be determined to write your own destiny, always give your best shot to all your tasks and projects.

3)  Have Patience & persistence to bounce back:

“Darkest nights produce the brightest stars”, You need to have the ability to bounce back after facing failures or down times. Become resilient, don’t take NO for an answer.

4)  Learn to delegate tasks and free yourself from mundane day to day tasks. Focus your energies on tasks related to your goals, Use Pareto principle, and focus on 20% tasks and activities which would enable you to achieve 80% of your goals.

5)  Want to change yourself – change your circle of people with whom you hang-out the most. It is said that a person’s character is an average sum of 5 people with whom he hangs out the most. Change your circle and change yourself. Hang out with people whom you aspire to become, hang out with people who guide you and are more knowledgeable than yourself. Find yourself a mentor from your industry and keep learning like a good student.

"Guru Drona in Hindu mythological scripture Mahabharata helped Arjuna to discover is the key strength in archery."

6)  Identify your unique key strength: Become “unique” in your field of work, which would become your passion. Just focus on your unique strength & become master of that speciality. Go deep into your speciality and you shall become “Thought leader” of your field. Become disruptor in your category and create your own niche.

I shall include one case study of a successful coffee shop who despite cutting throat competition in coffee shop market, was able to carve a niche for themselves by using disruptive marketing strategies.

Case study: Brand - Prufrock café

Disruptive tool: Disloyalty card – Disruptor in café space.

As a start-up they wanted to do things differently, they wanted to create awareness about their coffee shop which promised to offer its customers a unique speciality is artisan handmade coffee, freshly brewed from hand-picked selected coffee beans from various parts of the world.

Being too tight on marketing budgets, they launched Disloyalty card in the market at the time when all brands worldwide are talking about loyalty cards/systems and retaining their customers. The very thought of DISLOYALTY card was disruptive in nature.

They distributed these cards to their catchment areas and asking their customer to drink coffee in selected competitive stores like Starbucks, etc and they were to complete 5 visits to different coffee shops. Post completing 5 trips to competitive coffee shops, the customer could come and visit Prufrock café and get their first coffee free of cost.

Benefits: Prufrock café wanted to attract only true coffee connoisseurs hence people who came to their shop with DISLOYALTY card were true coffee lovers who could identify the difference in café’s blends and its handcrafted coffees. They appreciated the quality of the blend that Prufrock café had promised as their Brand Promise.

Media mileage: Café got attention from all the local media publications and influencers wanting to know about their DISLOYALTY card and its purpose, resulting in free publicity for the café.

A perfect example wherein Entrepreneurs of Prufrock café not only overcame the challenge of generating publicity and increasing footfalls but also gave an excellent experience to coffee connoisseurs. They converted their roadblock to their advantage.

Hope my article would help upcoming entrepreneur by providing them with key insights and required inspiration.I  can be reached at riteshmohan@yahoo.com in case any of my friends, followers would like to seek any help from me. I would be keen to share my industry experience and wisdom with them.

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 19 years in the retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, Brand management, Retail Operations, Sales Management, Business Management & Empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.