CHAPTER 6
6. 1 Introduction
This chapter is entirely focused on the conclusions of the studies through the literature review and questionnaires survey as highlighted from Section Two to Chapter Five. The suggestion for future research is also included in this chapter.
6. 2 Conclusion
From the inception of the idea of doing a research topic, the major goal of this research is to judge the potency of shopping centre tenant combine from the understanding of customers. To be able to achieve desire to, a few dominating objectives of the study were expressed concerning identify the ideas of ideal tenant combine in a shopping centre, to analyse the potency of tenant combine from the perception of customers and finally, to suggest ways to boost tenant mixture performance of any shopping centre.
The study is targeted on tenant mix of Cheras Leisure Mall in order to examine comprehensive on the research issue. The results of the questionnaires from the perception of customers towards the tenant mix performance were used to look for the performance of tenant combination in Cheras Leisure Shopping mall.
6. 2. 1 The Key points of Ideal Shopping Centre's Tenant Mix
From the books review, the rules of ideal tenant mixture are that the tenant combination must meet customer demand; consist of wide range of tenants; ensure that the shop lot size is ideal; have got a solid anchor tenant; place the tenants at the right place; and, relocate and refurbish tenants every once in awhile.
One of the most important principles in managing tenant mix is discovering the demographics of the catchment human population as it help choose the suitable tenants to provide the needs of different goal groups. The decision of tenant mixture should gratify any unmet demand for goods and services in just a centre's catchment area. Also, it is specially critical for shopping centre professionals to understand the shopping behaviour and cultural affects before selecting tenants for their shopping centre.
Next, it is important to provide large range of tenants to be able to attract and retain consumers to the shopping centre. Despite the comments that the bigger the store, the bigger the likelihood that the clients will shop there, it is recommended for the shopping centre supervisor to do some research on other similar category of tenant before allocating the space to tenants. That is to avoid lack of rental income because of the wastage of space.
In order to compete with the nearby shopping centres, it is important to secure a few attractive anchor tenants with proven successful sales record of merchandises or services. Also, the location of every tenant needs to be carefully organized in accordance to the shopping centres' design and its relationship with other tenants to be able to produce maximum pedestrian flow. In addition, the pedestrian flow and rental potential clients can be increased by relocating declining tenants.
From the conducted questionnaires study, tenant mix is available to play a huge role in the shopping centre success nearly as good tenant combination has large impact on shopping centre choices. Thus, it is pertinent to use the right tenant combine principles in managing a shopping centre.
6. 2. 2 The Success of Tenant Mixture from the Belief of Customers
As for the next aim, that is to analyse the effectiveness of tenant mix from the conception of customers, an evaluation on the magnitude of tenant blend in fulfilling customer demand, selection of tenants provided by the centre, the performance of anchor tenants and the satisfaction of customers on the keeping tenant and its relocation and refurbishment was done.
From the study, most of the consumers that visit the shopping centre frequently are from major catchment area. Therefore, it could be figured the tenant blend in Cheras Leisure Mall has successfully drawn the population of its catchment area by providing a tenant mix that meet up with the demand of goods and services within the centre's trade area. This is in accordance with the expectation of effective tenant combination in the books - bringing in and retaining buyers with the provision of shortfalls of goods and services offer locally (Downie et al. , 2001). For instance, Cheras Leisure Mall has satisfied the needs of entertainment of its catchment inhabitants as it's the only shopping centre within the vicinity of Cheras apart from Jusco Selatan that properties a range of entertainment facilities such as cinema and training video arcade.
Tenant mixture in Cheras Leisure Shopping mall is apparently favouring young ones and young family members. Downie et al. (2001) observed that a powerful tenant mix will lead to raised spending level. The study found that the frequent visit to the mall for the purpose of shopping pursuits like walking around, shopping, eating and enjoying movies has resulted in an expenditure of RM300 or less on each tenant category every month. Thus, there's a general understanding that the local expenses in a shopping centre would increase with the implementation of an effective tenant combination that creates a thrilling shopping experience.
From the questionnaire, tenants like food and drinks, entertainment, leisure and music and fashion and shoes are visited most frequently because they have got achieved most of the criteria needed by the clients such as wide range, recognised brand and good quality of products or services, fair products price and large shop lot for better selection and enjoyable shopping experience.
Out of the four anchor tenants, Golden Screen Movie theater is the most regularly visited anchor tenant accompanied by Giant Supermarket, Popular Bookstore and Fitness Strategy. This would reveal that entertainment is the key attributes in attracting customers to shopping centre. Get back, anchor tenant may possibly also create a specific image for the shopping centre (Finn and Louviere, 1996).
The priority of the shoppers as it pertains to effective anchor tenants is the price tag on products or services proposed by each anchor tenant. Generally, the anchor tenants in Cheras Leisure Shopping mall are effective in gratifying the shopping needs of customers as the number of price offered are of their affordability. For the choice of supermarket in term of price, Giant and Carrefour seem to be to be customers' favourites compared to prime supermarket like Cold Storage. Large supermarket provides customer with the possibility to buy at prices steady using their purchasing electricity.
In addition, it is crucial for the anchor tenants to occupy a relatively large space in a shopping centre to be able to provide an array of products and service. A lot of the respondents have agreed that the physical conditions in term of size and design of the anchor tenants in Cheras Leisure Mall are in satisfaction level. The merchandise provided by anchor tenants are also well regarded in terms of quality (Downie et al. , 2001). From the research, the product quality and brands of products provided by each anchor tenant suits their flavour and hence maximise sales probable.
Apparently, the shopping centre's management has succeeded in finding its anchor tenant and managed to create a thrilling shopping experience by clustering the suitable shop and complementing one another. It is simple for the purchasers to locate the shop with the current placement of tenants. Therefore, most of the respondents rarely walk from floor floor to the best floor. The pedestrian movement of Cheras Leisure Mall is normally good. However, the management need to pay more effort on improving the poor pedestrian flow in second floor.
According to Highman (2010), an effective shopping centre should reposition 20% to 25% of its tenants every a year. From the questionnaire results, many respondents are satisfied with current renovation and relocation of tenants done by the management of Cheras Leisure Shopping center and only 11% are dissatisfied with the renovations. This can be proven by the survey that the pedestrian stream in level some may be higher because the keeping new tenants such as Sakae Sushi and Big Apple Donuts compared to the prior food and beverages tenant like Blue Cafe. Therefore, the need of relocating and refurbishing tenants every once in awhile to maximise pedestrian flow is seen to be clear and important.
The overall performance of tenant mix of Cheras Leisure Mall is ranked as very good from the survey done on 100 respondents, thus this concludes that the tenant mixture in Cheras Leisure Shopping mall works well.
6. 2. 3 Advice on Ways to Improve Tenant Combination Performance of the Shopping Centre
Enhancing the range of food and beverages, fashion and entertainment were discovered as the main priority in increasing tenant blend. However, the suggestion on increasing the amount of strong tenant brand either locally or internationally and looking at shopping centre's tenant combine regularly are also important. Only few respondents believed that the management of shopping centre should relocate low yielding tenant.
6. 3 Limitations of Study
In this analysis, there are few constraints such as:
The range of questionnaires allocated to the customers is fairly small due to time constraint. Therefore the precision of the conclusions may be influenced.
Assumptions are used for certain part of this study as a result of unavailability of some information.
The findings of this study are stringently confined to Cheras Leisure Mall shopping centre. Thus, the potency of tenant combination in this shopping centre might not reflect the overall scenario of the united states.
The respondents or anybody mixed up in questionnaires do not give any warranties to the answer given.
6. 4 Recommendations for Future Research
Ultimately, it is difficult to judge the potency of tenant mix effectively because of the changing retail needs. However, it is thought that this review has given the understanding of the potency of shopping centre's tenant combination from the perception of customers. A larger test might give an improved understanding how shopping centre supervisor should enhance their tenant mix to be able to fulfil customer needs. Besides that, the study can be further improved by studying the potency of tenant mix based on the idea of view of shopping centre managers.
In addition, the eye-sight of shopping centres management to boost its tenant mixture can be achieved by doing a research on the feasibility of the next areas:
The marketing approaches for a shopping centre and its tenant
Tenant combine management procedures
Finally, the studies of the research is hoped to give the opportunities to the shopping centre professionals to improve their tenant combination consistently in response to the changing customer requirements.
