In an economic environment like the one we are living in, in which nothing seems to be worth what it costs, but in which everything costs much more to make it worth it, heir and hangover from a very recent past in which everything was possible, and in which always doing the same thing no longer even guarantees obtaining the same results, it is time to consider the validity and relevance of a coffee for everyone that has produced such good returns for the promotion, development and management of shopping centres in Spain until practically yesterday.
The crisis we are currently experiencing has, among its different meanings and aspects, two that have had a direct and important influence on this sector: the real estate and consumer sectors.
The first, a consequence of the absence of the second, is largely the result of having treated this industry from a perspective and a vision of the business that is excessively real estate-based, which at times has forgotten to make it compatible with a necessary customer orientation. Leaving aside the consumer perspective has impeded its evolution and has made us miss the dynamism that it has enjoyed for so many years.
This customer orientation involves, first of all, assuming that consumers are changing their habits, their leisure culture and their way of understanding their relationship with the shopping centre. This, in turn, leads us to bear in mind two fundamental and closely related facts:
• Not all customers are equally profitable: we have to find those segments that will really provide us with the profitability we are looking for (and of course we find these in gender, age or geographic location).
• Once the appropriate segmentation has been established, we have to define and build the visiting and consumption experience that maximizes the expectations and desires of these audiences.
Purchasing motivations have changed, and shopping centres must understand consumer behaviour in a holistic, multifaceted, more engaging and emotional way. The same coffee for everyone is starting to make no sense.
That the brand strategy is based more on the concept of quantity (more meters)2, more premises, more cinemas, more radio spots, more traffic, more promotions, more...) and not so much in terms of quality (target we attract, service, architecture, commercial offer, accessibility, environmental management...), appealing to satisfy the rational need of the consumer and defending our physical territory for fear that the competition will occupy it, instead of creating an emotional, lasting connection and conquering a place in the heart of the client (the truly profitable one), leads to the areas of attraction becoming smaller and smaller, the length of stay becoming shorter, many centres being perceived as clones and the main and, in some cases, practically the only reason for visiting being proximity.
A few days ago my 8-year-old daughter asked me why I was a Barça fan living in Madrid. I tried to answer as best I could, alluding to the reasons why, as a child, living outside Madrid, I had become a fan of this team. I saw that she was not very happy with the answer and then I alluded to the good game they were currently playing, the good work of players like Messi, Iniesta and Xavi, the cups won recently,…
Sebastian Fernandez
Managing Partner Hamilton Retail
