ICSC Las Vegas is always a much anticipated event in the calendar; a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues across the globe and learn more about the key topics and trends in retail.
As a fellow exhibitor, you can appreciate the power of having many of your customers in the same place at the same time, making for an incredibly productive, intense at times, but also fun three days in the Vegas heat.
Here, we share some of our key takeaways from the workshops, panel discussions and some of the world’s largest brands, that we are proud to call customers.
Community Creation
Community is a word that came up a lot at ICSC, both in conversations with our customers and also in the workshops and talks across the conference. The need for the owners and developers to engage with those in their portfolio, is essential as a way of creating engagement, retaining great tenants and driving revenue and footfall from their customers . Offering value-added elements such as concerts, arts centers, spas, fitness clubs, and farmer’s markets provides a level of leisure and entertainment that can never be satisfied online. Communication is at the heart of how the awareness of these services can be driven, Mallcomm’s ability to centralize and standardize tenant communication and update tenants with relevant property specific information has been highly effective at companies such as Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, US where they have enjoyed a 94.2% total tenant adoption and 22,370 app users across their 24 centers.
Organised Retail Crimes
We enjoyed an insightful workshop on combating Organised Retail Crime (ORC) and Theft hosted by Stephanie Cegielski, VP of Research and Public Relations for ICSC. The speakers covered how there has been a tangible increase in the scale and level of organisation that criminal gangs are now employing across America and the world, especially post-pandemic. Shopping centers are spending millions of dollars on security, staffing and technology to mitigate the financial, physical and emotional impact of ORC.
Mallcomm has worked with major players in the US market like Urban Edge and Mall of America to develop seamless communication capabilities that can be utilised and adapted in the fight against crime.
Building real-time communication pathways between centers, security, retailers and law enforcement as well as collecting and sharing data on incidents has a real impact on pre-empting crime and building patterns on when and how it occurs.
Integrated Tech Strategy
A cohesive tech strategy is paramount to support business initiatives on innovation and operational efficiency. With the constantly developing raft of products and services catering for the built environment, integration is key as businesses look to increase their tech stack and add value to customers with incremental functionality. Mallcomm’s ability to support these integrations puts us front and centre in the industry as a way to fold in the tech customers already use with our platform and also tap in to the latest innovative tech knowing it can be utilised with the platform.
The Prevalence of Mixed Use
Mixed use is becoming more popular as owners and developers look to diversify their portfolio and bring residential into their plans. The development of a community for those that live and work there to be part of is vital. They need to feel ‘in the know’ about all that is going on in their community, from the latest offers in the restaurants, security announcements, easy parking payments, planned construction and everything else that impacts them.
Empowering the landlord with the ability to create events, share offers, collect sales data using the Mallcomm platform has resulted in a significant uplift in sales for Mall of America and Janette Smrcka, IT Director at Mall of America believes that it’s clear that Mallcomm is willing to work with and to motivate Mall of America to take even greater strides in this new era of tenant relations.
The Power of Face to Face
Shows like ICSC demonstrate the power of conversation. Getting key players from the world of retail in one place generates conversation, sparks debate and leads to ideas that can be developed.
The building and maintaining of key relationships is vital to learn about your customers, hear their challenges and collaboratively come up with solutions that achieve their business goals. From creating efficiencies by digitising processes to engaging your retailers to support their portfolio performance, Mallcomm appreciates the value of being where our customers are. Thank you ICSC Las Vegas.
Mallcomm prides itself on being the best at what we do, working with the best in the world at what they do. Click the button below to have a conversation with our team and discuss how we can improve your portfolio management.