Profile raiser
Published: 22 July, 2010
Mall activities like RMUs work best when centre managers buy fully into the concept, and their enthusiasm permeates down through the entire centre team, according to RMU specialist Retail Profile’s Martin Kemp
Speaking at the second of Shopping Centre’s Retail Destinations Forums, held at the Trafford Centre in Manchester, Kemp said: “owners must respect mall activity. We have to move on from it being seen as a ‘necessary evil.’”
In April 2010 Retail Profile was acquired by the AIM-listed spaceandpeople, to form a full-service proposition for the commercialisation market.
Kemp said the challenge for centre owners and operators was to get the balance right between too much and too little mall activity, and equally between promotional activities and retailing in the mall space. “There’s also a balance to be struck between long-term occupancy and newness,” he said.
But this does not necessarily mean bringing in new brands to a centre’s RMU mix. “Because a lot of shoppers tend to park in the same place and shop a centre using the same route every time, you can convince people there’s something new simply by moving your RMUs from A to B,” he said.
And for their part RMU operators have to maintain standards of merchandising, location and customer flow, according to Kemp. “The best RMU is one you don’t see because you’re looking at fantastic products which are well merchandised,” he said. “We strive to achieve the same standards as the in-line retailers”
To underline the importance of merchandising and visual display, Kemp said Retail Profile was recently called in to remerchandise the RMUs in a large mall. All the work was carried out overnight and there was an immediate 30 per cent sales uplift the day after, which was sustained from then on.
But despite the benefits a well-managed RMU programme can bring to a mall, Kemp conceded there were several challenges facing the sector. The first is bringing those benefits to smaller centres. “Footfall is the key to success in commercialisation,” he said. “There’s a threshold below we just can’t trade, although there are exceptions, especially outlet malls where dwell times are much longer.”
And another potential problem is business rates. Currently rates are levied on RMUs in nine of the 38 UK centres where Retail Profile operates, according to Kemp. “It’s absolutely anathema to international brands to pay a tax which amounts to almost 50 per cent of the rent they’re already paying,” he said, although he admitted he was fearful of more local authorities jumping on the bandwagon and taxing RMUs which are, by their very nature mobile and which tend to change hands rapidly.
“It amounts to a tax on retail entrepreneurs,” Kemp said.
