Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2015 | Page 41

other hand, it has been observed that public
services, such as libraries, are a pretty good
addition to a shopping centre.

Shopping Around the World
A quick trip around the world tells us that
retail is being reinvented everywhere. In
Japan, the Aeon Mall complex at Makuhari
New City caters to pet lovers, providing e.g.
a pet hotel and a pet store. In New Zealand,
an entire shopping centre was built out of
shipping containers. The Beach in Dubai
combines shopping, the sea and an outdoor
cinema; the Siam Paragon Mall in Thailand
includes language schools, a cooking school
and an aquarium.
Yet everything pretty much pales
in comparison to Mall of the World, also
located in Dubai. This ongoing project will
integrate the largest shopping mall in the
world with the largest indoor theme park
in the world.
Additional districts within the project
will include a wellness-dedicated for medical tourists, a “cultural celebration district”
as well as a wide range of hospitality options
comprising 20,000 hotel rooms catering to
all types of tourists. Once completed, the
Mall of the World is projected to become a
year-round destination, welcoming around
180 million visitors annually.

Restoring Balance
Whether you do your shopping in a warm or
cold climate, it is clear that non-traditional
tenants have elevated the occupancy rates
at shopping centres and also help consum-

ers combine trips to one destination. Still,
the threat of internet looms over retail. Even
the legendary Stockmann department store –
located in the very heart of Helsinki downtown – has fallen on hard times, because
people may visit the store to try on some
clothes, but once they’ve decided on the
size and colour, they go online to make the
actual purchase.
The balance between a virtual and a
physical store is off, and conventional retail
operations are paying the price. Still, not
everything is lost: according to a recent
Accenture report, a growing number of US
shoppers plan to make purchases at bricksand-mortar stores, but they want the experience to be more convenient. This means,
for example, that 19 percent of consumers
surveyed said they are reserving items instore or are buying them online for in-store
pickup, while 14 percent are buying at the
store and having the item shipped to them.

Redefining Roles
Using physical stores more as distribution
centres is a novel idea that could have deeper
implications for retailers’ profitability – it
is possible that this, indeed, is the road to
better inventory management, fewer markdowns and higher margins, but it’s too early
in the game to know for sure.
While virtual stores can fit the whole
world in a website, shopping centres have
walls, floors and ceilings – physical (and
costly) limitations. However, now it seems
that one handicap is about to be eliminated.
While previously, modifications of retail

space were difficult to carry out, there are
more flexible concepts being developed all
the time.
In Finland, for instance, the steel manufacturer Ruukki has championed a new way
of building that allows for space to be modified and upgraded in tune with the chang