In shopping centers, shopping is increasingly becoming a minor matter
Published: Wednesday, Jun 19th 2024, 14:10
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The Swiss shopping center sector does not have it easy: customers are increasingly shopping online, competition among shopping centers is fierce and the infrastructure is not always up to date.
Centers must constantly reinvent themselves in order to attract customers. They are increasingly doing this with special extras instead of just good stores.
There are 195 shopping centers in Switzerland, including train stations and airports. They are all vying for customers. Some succeed better, some less. According to a survey by the industry organization Swiss Council of Shopping Places (SCSP), in which 27 centers took part, 17 shopping temples increased their turnover last year. Six shopping centers were able to maintain their turnover compared to the previous year. Four had to accept a decline in turnover.
The smaller and larger centers were particularly successful, writes the SCSP in its latest market report. With 17 centers, the majority also counted more visitors.
Comfortable benches and electric car charging station
Overall, the figures are positive, according to the industry report. This is because the majority of shopping centers have managed to successfully implement their customer loyalty strategies. "Nevertheless, these results should be taken as an incentive to continuously look for potential for improvement and adapt to the changing needs and expectations of customers in order to ensure long-term success," it says.
And the shopping centers are working on it. The oldest Swiss shopping centers were built in the early 1970s, so they already have 50 years under their belts. On average, they are over 30 years old, as SCSP CEO Marcel Stoffel told AWP at a conference on the shopping center market on Wednesday.
According to the market report, just under half of those surveyed have carried out a modernization project in the last two years. The managers of several shopping centers also stated that they would invest in modernization in the near future and "revitalize" their shopping center - in other words, invest money in its revitalization.
On the one hand, this involves classic renovation measures such as new toilet facilities, but it is also about offering customers new amenities. According to Stoffel, these could be things such as "high-quality seating, convenient parking facilities or Tesla Superchargers".
New tenants bring variety
The tenant mix in the individual stores of shopping centers is also a major concern for management, as can be seen from the report. Most centers describe the so-called "tenant mix" as the biggest challenge, but also as a great opportunity.
According to the SCSP, 25 of the 27 centers surveyed have seen "significant" changes in their tenant mix in recent years. In total, the tenants changed 120 times. Tenant changes were particularly frequent in the shopping centers with the largest floor space.
According to the report, the change in tenants shows that shopping centers are no longer just about typical retail outlets. Customers don't just want to buy things like sneakers, tomato puree and crime novels in shopping centers, they also want to eat, go to the doctor, get their nails done and have their cell phone mended.
According to the report, the new additions and re-letting in shopping centers are "mainly in the areas of personal services, health, wellness and everyday consumer goods". The most common sectors represented in shopping centers are fashion, beauty, cosmetics, sport, medicine, gastronomy, food, telecommunications and pet food.
Fierce online competition
Although shopping centers are also suffering from competition from online retailers, according to the survey, the networking of online and stationary sales experiences is not a priority for operators. According to Anja Reimer from the market research institute GfK Switzerland, "experience" is one of the biggest trends in retail - and THE buzzword at the Shopping Center Congress in Zurich on Wednesday.
"A good third of people in Switzerland value experiences more than possessions," she said at the event. And it is the task of shopping centers to combine these two things. As inspiration, she showed pictures of Korean eyewear stores, for example, which are also immersive art installations.
There were plenty of other examples. For example, various shopping centers attracted new customers with events. Patrick Stäuble, CEO of Shoppi Tivoli in Spreitenbach AG, explained that they had, for example, entered into partnerships with nearby hotels or cinemas and transformed the toilets into "feel-good zones" - with sofas for breastfeeding mothers or gender-neutral cubicles. "The indoor pool next door, which used to be the attraction, is no longer an experience," he said.
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