VietNamNet Bridge – In the past, shopping malls were understood as reserved for high income earners only. However, things are getting quite different: the high grade shopping malls now target popular customers as well.

Popular customers also can bring benefits

More and more new shopping malls have been set up recently in big cities and commercial hubs. This is quite a surprise that the luxurious shopping malls with modern decoration design and luxurious equipment now target popular clients as well.

Grand Plaza in the west of Hanoi has announced a new business strategy-- targeting popular customers. Once described as the “shopping paradise,” but Grand Plaza’s business performance has been worse than expected.

Analysts say targeting diversified customers is an inevitable decision for Grand Plaza, which had unsatisfactory business result over the last two years and needs to follow a new way to survive.

Grand Plaza has announced that there would be a supermarket which sells fresh food, goods for daily use on the ground floor of the building. Grand Plaza would also consider organizing big events, such as regular sales promotion campaigns or the meetings with celebrities, aiming to attract more visitors and buyers.

In an effort to retain the retailers who set up their kiosks there, Grand Plaza has launched the biggest ever promotion program, under which the tenants would not have to pay rents for the first six months.

Hoang Duc Anh, Managing Director of Grand Plaza, has admitted that the A-class shopping mall is leasing retail premises at the fees for B-class premises, about 30-50 dollars per square meter a month.

Previously, Grand Plaza targeted the customers with the monthly income of 10 million dong and higher. However, the shopping mall now targets the customers with 4-5 million dong a month in income. This has led to the big changes in the goods available here, with the products made domestically accounting for 70 percent of the products on display.

Analysts have commented that in the current economic difficulties, instead of going to the high grade shopping malls where only luxurious and expensive products are available, people tend to go to the shopping malls with modern facilities which are friendly to them.

It’s easy to build, but difficult to run

In late August 2012, Indochina Plaza on Xuan Thuy Road in Cau Giay district in Hanoi was inaugurated. The shopping mall is located on a very advantageous position in a commercial hub in Hanoi, while it is associated with Indochina Capital – known as a foreign real estate developer, the brand of many luxurious resort and apartment projects.

Understanding well that the shopping mall becomes operational in the context of the economic difficulties, the investor has been trying to make the shopping mall friendly to customers.

In general, the positions which have the highest rents are reserved for high class fashion products such as footwear, handbags or foreign made clothes. However, Indochina Plaza Hanoi has decided to reserve room for sweets stalls and general activities. This shows the big changes in the “interface” of the shopping mall which targets the majority popular clients.

As for Indochina Plaza, obtaining high turnover is not the main goal of its operation at this moment. The managers of the shopping mall have said the number of visitors would be the index to measure its success.

According to CBRE Vietnam, a real estate service provider, Hanoi now has 270,000 square meters of shopping mall area. With 10 shopping malls (650,000 square meters) to be put into operation from now till the end of 2013, the retail premises supply would be double.

Thanh Dung