Going ‘Omnichannel’ has become an integral part of strategies for all successful brands and retailers across the globe. Omnichannel typically references brands and retailers who have both a physical and a digital presence. The idea of designing a cohesive user experience at all touchpoints was so successful for retailers and appealing to crowds that shopping centres decided to adopt the strategy and mould it to their specifications. With the idea of doing away with an outdated tenant-mix model, many mall owners are today proactively adapting properties to generate growth in an Omnichannel retailing context.
While customers are still very interested in physical retail experiences, their expectations are higher, their appetite for experiential retail growing forcing malls to adapt Omnichannel technologies faster than ever before. Add to this the COVID-19 pandemic and suddenly, malls have had to reshape their strategies, incorporate new features into their business structure, and are now moving towards those technologies and experiences that are digitally more convenient to the consumer stuck at home.
The idea of designing a cohesive user experience at all touchpoints was so successful for retailers and appealing to crowds that shopping centres decided to adopt the strategy and mould it to their specifications. With the idea of doing away with an outdated tenant-mix model, mall developers are today proactively adapting properties to generate growth in an Omnichannel retailing context.
Shopping centres are moving away from the traditional copy-and-paste mall model by creating memorable and unique destinations that attract both tenants and shoppers. Omnichannel malls send mobile updates for movies, book tickets via the mall app, including offers, table booking in restaurants, information on new rides in gaming zones and available parking space ensuring that the consumers (families) visit the mall again and again.
Aside from this, an Omnichannel mall can integrate traditional methods of mass advertising with emerging interactive channels – websites, emails, and social media messaging – to give the same messages, and offers, and showcase the same products to consumers. This will help incorporate the needs, communications and interactions between customers, brands/ retailers and malls.
Malls give them the comfort and ease of spending hours roaming and checking out stores, while the dwell time in high-street stores is limited to minutes. Malls can also provide much better consumer engagement than some big players on high streets including creating a great ambience.
