Malls here to stay even post-pandemic

Despite the high growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce), a top official of SM Supermalls on Thursday said he believes that malls will continue to be relevant post-pandemic.

Speaking at the 27th National Retail Conference and Stores Asia Expo organized by the Philippine Retailers Association (PRA), SM Vice President for Corporate Strategy Gino Borromeo said that contrary to the prevailing “malls are dying, e-commerce is taking over” narrative, malls will continue to be around.

“Malls will continue to be around, they will continue to be relevant venues and destinations for people to gather. What does the future of malls look like? Well, I can tell you this, it will not be exactly the same as its past and its present,” he said.

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“So, what’s inside malls and what will make people visit malls, will certainly evolve,” he added.

Borromeo said societal and cultural forces that drove the evolution of malls include globalization and affordable air travel, combined power of the internet, mobile devices, and social, and lastly, the pandemic.

“With pandemic life disrupting our normal everyday routine and forcing the world to take a collective pause, people around the world, including the Philippines are going through a great reassessment of how they live, work, shop. And this of course will reshape people’s behavior as malls and retail customers,” he said.

Borromeo noted that several things will remain.

“Shopping will continue to remain an emotional leisurely activity. By that I mean we don’t just shop for functional or practical reasons, like replenishing supplies or to buy basic necessities,” he said.

“What we’ve been observing is that customers are prioritizing spending on what we would describe as, new essentials or very simply, products and services that are seen as essential for quality of life. These include domestic hobbies, productivity, health and wellbeing, functional fashion, take home experiences, and comfort food,” he added.

According to him, malls’ tenancy mix will also change.

“The change will be tenancy makes will be fine-tuned to have more of the concepts that customers want more of. The mall of the future will seek out the right balance of new essentials and the nice to haves, balance of brands born online and born offline, a balance of established brands and new generation brands and finally, a balance of global and regional brands, alongside national and local brands,” he said.

Borromeo noted that the physical stores will still matter because customers continue to prefer the experience of shopping from a physical store.

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The National Retail Conference and Expo meanwhile has served as a hub for retailers and suppliers to discover the latest trends and developments in the industry.

“As we slowly move forward and work our way back to recovery, the 27th NRCE will be relevant and ideally suited to the current conditions of retailers. With the theme retail reboot, we aim to provide our participants a valuable learning experience to help overcome the challenges of the pandemic and get back on track into growth and profit,” said PRA President and Chief Operating Officer of Wilcon Depot Rosemarie B. Ong.

“We the Filipino retailers have exhibited that through the years, we are resilient, receptive to innovation and adoptive to the rapid changes in the retail landscape and hence, we have no doubt that these challenges shall pass and we can overcome them as long as we work together,” she added.

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Article and Photo originally posted by Manila Times last August 13, 2021 and written by Anna Leah E. Gonzales.

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