Shopping malls facing e-commerce challenge: ASSOCHAM

Faced with heavy discounts from e-commerce, shopping mall owners in major cities are shaping back, going aggressive in the run up to Diwali offering freebies and easy finance options, hoping to win back the footfalls and increase their business by at least 45-50 per cent in the ongoing festive season as compared to similar period last year, an ASSOCHAM paper has noted.

Armed with new sales strategy of giving a shopping and festive feel to the consumers, the malls in Delhi -NCR, Mumbai, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Chennai have already started seeing increased activity while Diwali still 10 days away, as per the feedback received from the retailers.

This is also attributable to the malls, which had come under the twin pressure of slowdown and e-commerce onslaught by way of deep discount, getting their promotional marketing right. Many of them have tied up with the manufacturers of consumer durables and fashion wears for tempting schemes with easy finance options like TV, refrigerators, off-season AC sale and even high end mobile phone handsets.

"In any case, there is a better market experience this festive season, which is expected to give a leg-up to the consumer sentiment," ASSOCHAM Secretary General Mr D S Rawat said.

The ASSOCHAM study is conducted based on responses from 750 leasing managers, management representatives of malls, strategists, marketers and supervisors in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Dehradun.

The study noted that most of the retailers and consumer durable goods makers were upbeat about brisk business during the third quarter and therefore increased their overall marketing budget by about 30 percent to 40 percent for this period alone. They plan to conduct these promotional activities until early January, it added.

Some malls in national capital New Delhi reported record business on weekends as buyers rushed to get clothes, food, jewellery and cosmetics for Diwali celebrations. In value terms, the growth is 20 percent higher than the previous year while in volume terms it could be around 10-15 percent higher, reveal the mall managers.