Is the fight deadly?
Experts are convinced that in a situation where incomes and purchasing power continue to fall, and the consumer model has changed once and for all, retailers have entered into the "last battle" not so much with each other, but with all non-retail: from cinemas and entertainment parks to language courses and museums. Is it so?
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WHAT VOLUMES!
Anna Lapchenko, Head of Retail Real estate Department Frank St. Petersburg, states: as for the premises, retail still cannot compete with entertainment parks and museums. "Parks are looking for large areas from 3,000 sq. m. m with high ceilings, they can occupy the last floors of the shopping center, but there are no suitable facilities for them in the city center," the expert reports. Museums and language courses can occupy basement rooms and platforms on the second floors, with a complex layout. Retail has completely different requirements. In this regard, retail competes with catering companies, mainly with new trendy places - burgers, snack bars, gastro bars, etc. Classic restaurants can open in quiet places that retail is not so interested in.
Against this background, CBRE notes the appearance of whole new entertainment centers in Russia. «And even district shopping centers (for example, ADG) include an entertainment component as one of the anchors, – says Konstantin Budagyan. "New virtual entertainment centers are appearing, the range of services is expanding (ARena Space, Game Stadium, Cyberspace, «Virtual Reality »). Large-format educational centers for children update the set of activities (Kidzania, Kidburg). There are also entertainment and training formats for district shopping centers (a joint project of the ADG group and the Edutainment Group), the concepts of amusement parks for children are being updated (Zamania, Joki Joya, Cosmic, Island, and others). Entertainment areas are an integral part of large-format shopping malls. Recently, the presence of several entertainment activities and edutainment have become a trend for district shopping facilities.
FASHION HOUSE Group reports: the outlet industry is also facing new challenges, and food is becoming a new fashion. Customers want "entertaining shopping", a new type of leisure-loving shoppers has appeared, which creates fantastic opportunities for outlets. "Of course, retailers did not enter into the last battle with all non-retail, much less in competition with it,"Oksana Bondarenko, president of the holding "Li-Lu" is sure. The entertainment industry, restaurants, museums, lectures are a new direction in the marketing strategy of shopping malls. Not to mention the fact that not only retail and shopping centers are experiencing a crisis, but also the sphere of culture, which is very difficult to survive in new conditions. Retail competes only with itself. And if earlier there was a clear division into luxury, premium, mass market, now everything is mixed up. Just look at these collaborations: Louis Vuitton with Supreme, Off-White with Rimowa, Palm Angels with Nike, Uniqlo and H&M do collaborations with both world-class designers and fashion houses. But in Russia, unfortunately, a situation has been artificially created when the population loses the desire to spend. If we create comfortable conditions, then social, political and economic events will have a lesser impact on all these trends that we are talking about now. One exchange rate is worth a lot! As soon as a small change occurs, then immediately the drop in sales begins.
At the same time, according to Ms. Bondarenko, Instagram works great for retailers like never before. "Now thanks to Instagram, you can not watch fashion magazines at all and not even go to the shops – all the most interesting and fashionable in one feed!» says Oksana Bondarenko. As for the "palaces of entertainment and shopping", then, according to Olga Starichenko from Mosaics, it is important for developers and management companies not to overdo it with the amount of entertainment. «At some point they will start «eating up» each other, taking away visitors and «smearing» revenue», – explains Ms. Starichenko.
< span style="font-size: 12px;">Author: Ekaterina Reutskaya