By
By Brenda Morgan
Malls continue to remain a social shopping experience for young females. In the past several years, shopping malls have taken a big blow because of the increase in Internet shopping, resulting in 40% vacancies or higher across the country.
The good news is when it comes to the holiday season, shoppers, especially young females, still flock the malls.
As a matter of fact, almost 65% in a survey done by Teen Vogue said they would do the majority of their holiday shopping in-store compared with 35% who said they would shop mostly online.
The main reason: Young women want to see and feel the products they are purchasing and they like a place to hang out with friends and family.
There is a larger experience that these young women get by going to the mall – the food court, entertainment and all of the bells and whistles that make holiday shopping cheery and delightful. They look forward to their holiday shopping trips because they like to look at the holiday decorations — the trees, wreaths, lights, special elements and even Santa!
They love music playing and many times that music will be playing to a light show by a fully decorated holiday tree.
They have holiday shopping bags with snowflakes, listen to bands playing holiday music and engage in special holiday activities the malls have planned.
What is most important is they get to buy the experience of celebrating winter coziness and feeling of affinity for loved ones during what some dream the most wonderful time of the year.
Retailers are investing more time and thought into creating holiday experiences to draw more people into their malls. This is done by utilizing the talent of specially trained commercial holiday décor designers to help create the best theme that will draw upon that market segment.
Holiday décor is what attracts people to a shopping center and many malls and centers are looking for a display that people will remember and talk about. This continues to become more important as shopping centers face heightened competition for holiday shoppers from other centers, catalogs and internet.
The holiday décor your select is proven to affect both traffic and sales.
One of the most tangible ways to track consumer response to a center’s seasonal décor is through the volume of photo sales in the Santa shop. Centers that introduce a new décor after a few years with the same decorations often see an increase in their Santa visits by as much as 17% -25%.
Exterior options for seasonal décor play as big a role as interior. Because many centers don’t have the same common area space, they utilize just about every option, such as rooftops, light poles, marquee signs, banner signs, main entry elements, animation, oversized décor as well as music.
So as you are looking into your holiday décor, let us help you design a program that is the magic for the kids and the sophistication for the adults to put them in the holiday mood. Get holiday decorating ideas in this free guide!
