At the Retail Expo-2021 Hardtalk Congress, dedicated to the topic "Cardiogram of the retail market of Ukraine", Anna Chubotina, CEO of Arricano, spoke about how the retail and development industry was pulsating during the year . And how vaccination has become a key factor in overcoming market arrhythmia. For more information, see the special column for the Malls Club publication.  

Cardiogram of traffic in the first half of the year: more often, from weekends to weekdays
Since the beginning of 2021, we have seen the market rapidly overcome barriers, catching up on lost time due to quarantine. Consequently, in the first half of the year, tenants were pleased with the dynamics of trade turnover, especially in such categories as "Sports", "Electronics" and "Fashion". Another positive observation was the frequency of visits to the shopping mall, namely to the audience that lives nearby in the coverage area. Visitors limited their social mobility and migrated less outside the comfortable living halo. The behavioral pattern of customers has also changed, because the time of family shopping has shifted from weekends to weekdays. In other words, in the conclusion about the "Cardiogram" of shopping mall's traffic, we can say that it has become targeted, conversion-based, with a higher frequency and on weekdays. 

Spurts of the autumn season
Due to government restrictions, the expected recovery in the market turned into another slowdown. Players have concerns that we may not see the pent-up demand that was observed during previous trading restrictions. As of today, the industry does not have information about how long such conditions for visiting the shopping mall will last and when the end date will be. Such uncertainty psychologically affects customers, making it difficult to plan family shopping budgets.  Now we track the results of traffic and turnover from week to week, comparing them with different periods to predict how the market will behave in the future.  
For their part, the shopping malls, while understanding the socio-strategic importance of immunization, acted as the engine of vaccination. Thus, they contributed to the government program both in the information campaign and by directly investing resources, including financial ones, in the arrangement of points for receiving vaccinations in the shopping mall. The results of vaccination management in the shopping malls are impressive – as of mid-November, about 10% of all vaccinated people in the Zaporizka region received two doses of the vaccine in the City Mall alone. The number of visitors who have used this option in the country's shopping malls confirms that they trust their shopping malls.

Changes to the tenant-landlord model
Another potential driver of our industry's growth can be considered data management. At the stage of completion, we have a pilot project to collect sales data in more than 20 stores of Prospekt shopping mall. With these tenants, we reach a new level of trust and transparent cooperation in order to track the behavior of customers through receipts, quickly respond to requests and demand in the market, and understand the degree of penetration in product categories and product line. As a result, to strengthen tenants through the mall's marketing programs. 
It is more effective for us to work with those brands and proactive tenants who understand the value of thoughtful marketing activities that are aimed at stimulating demand, creating consumer needs and new shopping motives. After all, a shopping mall for brands is a promotion channel, a tool for direct interaction with the buyer and management customer journey at an offline point of sale. 
This year we have new successful cases of brand crossing, as a result of which all participants won. For example, we stimulated the growth of turnover through an additional purchase by raffling off certificates and promo codes for a discount in the "here and now" format in the direct emotional marketing of Secret Box in the shopping mall's gallery.  
Another successful crossing was when passengers of the Uklon taxi service received a pizza from il Molino as a gift on the birthday of Prospekt shopping mall. 
We do not stop lobbying for an active healthy lifestyle. Therefore, together with the Decathlon brand, we conducted sports and entertainment activities in the Prospekt shopping mall gallery, installed creative photo zones and interesting brand installations, expanding the product display area into the shopping  mall's gallery.
We will continue to recommend that the brands of our tenants "go out" to the gallery to the customers, be closer to them, listen to the staff on the ground, impress with creativity, openness and hospitality in order to arouse interest, desire to interact and buy.   
2021 shows us possible vectors of industry development in the future. For ourselves, we have identified areas that stimulate the company's growth: social projects, effective data management, and customer journey offline. 

Source: http://mallsclub.com