An Case Study Approach for Identifying Factors Responsible for Failed Shopping Malls in India

Running a mall is not for the faint-hearted. It is the struggle for financial viability, customer understanding and longevity. The troubled times for retail real estate market in India continues with as much as 160 malls performing average to poor out of a total of around 215 operational malls across top seven markets of India. Driven by a growing economy, changing lifestyles, strong income growth and favourable demographic patterns, malls in India are expanding at a rapid pace. The malls in India today are reflections of lifestyles of catchments. So in order to make a mall run successfully in today's cut throat competition, management has to provide all the possible services to the customers of all age group. And quite a lot depend on relation between tenants (small retailers) and mall management.

The present research paper attempts to find out the failed strategies or problem areas of shopping malls in India. In order to understand and evaluate the above objective, researcher takes five case studies of failed malls such as Fort Knox Mall (Kolkata), Star City Mall (Mayur Vihar, East Delhi), Centre Stage Mall (Noida), Vasant Square Mall (Delhi) and Ashoka Metropolitan Mall (Hyderabad). It can be concluded that common problem of all these Indian malls are wrong tenant-mix strategy and unavailability of fun and entertainment facilities. Other reasons for failure of these malls are lack of focus on customer services, lack of zoning, lack of capability in retaining the anchor stores, higher vacancy rate etc. After the analysis of the study, researcher suggests that both mall management and tenants should work together and offer the customers a complete experience which includes a good variety of products, a good number of eating outlets and attractive fun & entertainment of all age's customers.