Vingroup has opened its 55th shopping centre, The Vincom Center Landmark 81 mall, in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Thanh district.
The 50,000sqm shopping centre occupies six of the skyscraper’s 81 storeys, housing 100 domestic and international brands in cosmetics, fashion, F&B, and entertainment.
Fashion brands include Versace Jeans, Calvin Klein, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Lacoste, French Connection, Kimmay, Superdry, H:Connect; Cole Haan, Ecco, Dune London, Parfois, Aldo, Pandora, Longines, OWL and Nike.
The 7000sqm food and beverage area features 30 restaurants, including China’s Peach Garden, Japan’s Dozo Sushi, Vietnamese restaurants Delights, Di Mai, and coffee shops including Starbucks’ largest Vietnam outlet and Highlands Coffee.
In the entertainment area, there is a 2000sqm Vincom Ice Rink, Vietnam’s largest, and a CGV cinema complex including an Imax screen, as well as a tiNiWorld entertainment complex and an indoor games centre.
Vingroup’s food arm VinMart operates a supermarket there.
Penang will gain its first premium outlet mall, Design Village, next month.
In Batu Kawan in mainland Penang, it will be the biggest outlet mall in Malaysia. It was developed by PE Land, which owns and runs The Spring shopping mall in Kuching.
The outlet mall is on a mixed-use site that will include a hotel and high-end condominiums. The single-storey mall has a net leasable space of 400,000 sqft (37,161 sqm) for 150 stores.
There are more than 80 brands already committed to the mall, which is aiming for up to 100, says Savills Malaysia MD Allan Soo. The company is the international leasing and retail development adviser for Design Village.
The mall’s retail mix will be 20 per cent large-format stores, 15 per cent F&B, 7 per cent sports outlets and 5 per cent children’s stores, with 25 per cent new tenants and 28 per cent others.
It will include the biggest Adidas outlet in Malaysia, plus the first outlet stores for Aldo and Bata. Other retailers include Banana Republic, Guess, Padini Concept Store, Sacoor Brothers, Samsonite and Starbucks.
The mall will provide daily shuttle services to and from hotels and the airport.
Design Village GM Aileen Tay says the mall is also working with tour companies to bring in tourists who will be offered rebates through tax-free shopping network Global Blue.
PE Land is the retail and property development arm of Borneo-based conglomerate Pan Sarawak Holdings.
WearYouWant Thailand – the Bangkok based online fashion marketplace – has reported a 150 per cent growth in revenue this year.
“It has been an astounding year for WearYouWant,” says Julien Chalté, co-founder and Co-CEO.
“We have outperformed our budget for the last 11 months and believe we will end this year on a strong note.”
WearYouWant Thailand has been working hard this year to build brand awareness, including an advertising campaign on the BTS Skytrain network, which has boosted site traffic by 30 per cent.
The raised brand awareness has encouraged brands such as Mac Jeans and Aldo to supply the site.
“Our advertising campaign has shown remarkable results in terms of visibility. In addition to generating more traffic and conversions, it has also created trust on the B2B side, which has resulted in an increase of new partners joining our platform,” Martin Sørensen, fellow co-founder and co-CEO added.
The Thai fashion market place now boasts about 500,000 visits per month and aims to create a high-quality, brand-led seamless online retail experience, which they have achieved for the platform in 2015 on both the B2B and B2C side.
“We have had immense growth in 2015 on the partner side and on the end user side. One of the important strategic focus points for WearYouWant will remain to continue growing our B2B market at the same pace as we grow our B2C database; that is key for being successful in a B2B2C setup as ours,” explains Sørensen.
A fourth anniversary birthday campaign this month has set a new sales record for the site, which has achieving nearly 50 per cent of the total sales forecast for December less than half way into the month.
The entry of new local and international retailers, combined with a challenging economic outlook and weak consumer sentiment is all adding up to the mix.
Despite a slowdown in retail sales, there is currently 1.1 million sq.m. of retail space under construction in Bangkok, which will bring the total completed supply in 2017 close to 8 million sq.m.
Within the CBD, the latest major retail developments to open are EmQuartier and Central Embassy, intensifying competition for existing malls such as Siam Paragon, Gaysorn and CentralWorld.
In addition, big developers continue to renovate their downtown retail centres such as Siam Discovery and MBK.
As the major retail centres are chasing after the same group of consumers, retail events and promotions have become ubiquitous
As the major retail centres are chasing after the same group of consumers, retail events and promotions have become ubiquitous leading to a cut-throat competition and heighted promotion campaigns, particularly gearing up to the festive season where consumer spending typically peaks.
The expansion by major retail developers to suburban areas may also in part draw consumers away from CBD malls, although the impact may be limited.
Bangkok’s suburban areas today are well served by quality retail centres, reducing the need for consumers to travel into the CBD.
To the North, Zpell@Future Park has just opened on 27th November. Opened on the same day in Eastern Bangkok on Ekamai-Ram Intra is Central EastVille, adding competition to existing malls in the area such as Crystal Park and Crystal Design Centre.
The Mall Group is also currently planning The Bangkok Mall on Bangna-Trad which is expected to be completed in 2017. To the West, CentralPlaza WestGate recently opened in August in the Bang Yai area, adding a major retail centre to an area where there have been limited retail developments.
The Riverside will also get its own luxury shopping complex in 2017 with the opening of IconSiam which will comprise a 500,000 sq.m. retail and entertainment complex, part of which includes a 36,000 sq.m. 7-floor Takashimaya department store from Japan which will be Thailand’s first.Amidst this competition, the segment that will find most challenging is community malls.
Community malls will be forced to adjust their strategies and have clear unique selling points and propositions to draw in consumers; otherwise they are likely to be overshadowed by major retail developments that have a bigger events and promotions budget.
It is essential for community mall developers to understand their target consumers’ needs and retain anchor tenants in order to compete in the long-term.
The plus side of the retail expansion is that it will create room for both domestic and international retailers to expand to suburban areas.
International fashion brands such as H&M, Uniqlo, Aldo and Charles & Keith have already expanded to CentralPlaza WestGate.
Canadian fashion footwear retailer Aldo will open its first store in East Malaysia.
The company has leased space in The Spring shopping mall where its store is under fitout in preparation for a January 30 opening.
The Spring’s marketing and leasing director Andy Song said signing Aldo was part of a plan to bring more international brands to the mall.
“We are always looking to bring in new and exciting brands into Kuching. Like the up and coming Canadian brand, Aldo, which has a worldwide presence for on-trend fashion footwear and accessories. Their products will be available at reasonable prices,” he told The Borneo Post newspaper.
Aldo has 11 stores in Malaysia, all currently in Peninsular Malaysia. It 1424 sqft The Spring store will be located on the ground floor between apparel chain Esprit and jeweller Pandora.
