Analytics and artificial intelligence empower shopping centres and retail destinations with insights to support leasing strategies and facilitate exchanges between brand partners and management teams that unlock long-term growth.
Data has become an invaluable tool for placemakers. Still, without capitalising on the strategic insight available, you cannot deliver the high-quality customer experience that both today’s consumers and brand partners demand. Swift action has become necessary for brands, landlords, investors, and management teams.
One common challenge for fast paced environments like retail and leisure is that even organisations putting resources into data gathering can be disappointed by the lack of usable analytics that this yields. Traditional methods or retail intelligence apps with static numbers and reports do not always meet current needs. Our experience providing solutions and analytics puts us in a prime position to understand these frustrations and address the data-decision gap that threatens a collaborative dynamic with brand partners around timely shared insights.
Our tool Retail Advantage, holistically addresses data opportunities by bringing performance metrics together for a consistent, current view. Tailored visualisations and reporting are designed to answer relevant questions and can flag and serve insights to the right people through augmented capabilities. Having the right tools allows placemakers to see what works for their customers and under what conditions. The same approach can be used to inform leasing decisions and support the brand partner journey.
“We use data daily to help and nurture our brand partners with a 360-degree picture of how they trade in comparison to others in their category, the centre trading averages and comparisons to other locations within our portfolio. Our management style is collaborative and supportive, it helps tremendously that Realm staff are predominantly from a retail background meaning that we see our role as collaborators. Sharing the results and insights we get from Retail Advantage makes us leaders rather than managers or simple custodians, there is a much greater sense of proactivity and not relying on chance when making important decisions.”
Anand Basu-Attwood, Commercial Operations Manager at Resorts World Birmingham, a client of Retail Advantage
From initial discussions, smart tools and data-driven insights enhance tenant attraction and performance. Retail Advantage helps identify suitable partners by analysing customer demographics, foot traffic, and competitive landscapes, allowing leasing teams to target brands that align with local demand. Analytics also assist in optimising the mix of your places and spaces, ensuring that the retail, leisure and F&B complement each other to maximise foot traffic and cross-spending.
The variety and volume of customer data organisations can collect has increased dramatically, creating difficulties in processing it efficiently. In some cases this leaves you feeling like you have less control and understanding than before. Intelligent digital tools make it faster to reap the benefits from different touchpoints across the leasing journey. By creating an ecosystem that answers questions and informs decisions, retail stores and destinations can avoid accumulating costly, non-relevant data with no clear outcomes for coherent and connected analysis. The efficacy of using individual data points is also amplified when seamlessly integrated, supporting a more engaged and productive workforce that is well supported to satisfy customer demands.
“It is integral that we are able to provide our brand partners with the knowledge, background and trade patterns of our Centres as well as the locations, regions and countries in which they trade. Retail Advantage helps us gather, analyse and dissect this data from a wide selection of sources on a daily basis. We then provide a service to our brand partners, advising them about what this information shows and how best to use it to maximise trade and performance across our portfolio.”
Eleanor James, Head of Brand Development at McArthurGlen, a client of Retail Advantage
No matter where your organisation sits on the AI debate, from already adopting it to being curious to fearful, there are clear opportunities in retail and leisure to help grow capacity and upskill your teams. We still see a lot of best-guess approaches or processes that rely too heavily on human labour.
AI is becoming a powerful tool in the future of retail places, but for it to be effective, the use of the right technology and consultancy partners is integral. By moving beyond using data to create simple charts and graphs and instead adopting augmented analytics, we can help shopping environments democratise more data and provide real-time guidance to the frontline and centre of operations.
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