Business activities have yet to fully return to normal. Nevertheless, people’s passion for going to shopping centres continues. Naturally, landlords and retailers welcome this and aim to keep visitors positive and returning to visit such centres.
During the pandemic, however, some tenants are waiting to see how the situation develops before deciding about store expansion. Others are expected to reconsider store layouts and sizes at the time of lease renewal.
On balance, the current retail situation needs more time to recover. The volume of sales transactions are expected to be much lower than normal due to reduced purchasing power as a result of layoffs and salary cuts. Retailers currently tend to boost sales with an omni-channel strategy. From the landlord’s side, the aim is to optimise the tenant mix to increase the number of visitors. Generally, in future, landlords are expected to be more careful in selecting and classifying the types of tenant, in order to better regulate the number of visitors within the centre and inviting visitors to regularly go and shop there.