Spatial Economics Of Shopping Malls. A Configurational Approach in Rent and Tenanting Decision

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Operations Research, grade: 2.5, course: PhD, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this research is to bridge the gap between retail research results on customer movement in shopping centers and importance of space syntax analysis in predicting indoor navigation pattern for better understanding of store space allocation, store location and tenanting decision making in shopping malls. A bid-rent model is specified and solved under the condition of profit maximization of individual stores to examine the impact of customer density in predicting store space allocation and rental decision making. To predict the importance of visibility in customer density distribution, data were collected through recording navigational preferences of individuals in computer generated situations of shopping mall junctions using a convenience sampling method. The visibility characteristics were studied using visibility graph analysis by syntax 2D software tools. The model is extended under condition of revenue maximization of the entire mall in rationalizing tenanting decision making. Tenanting, rent and store space allocation decisions depend on the customer density distribution throughout the shopping mall. Natural movement and consequent natural customer density depend on the visual integration of a location along with metric distance from the access point. Revenue maximization of the shopping mall depends on the strategic positioning of different store types. The positioning of different stores in turn depends on the spatial configuration, which dictates natural customer density distribution. This paper, being the first of its kind, integrates retail research wisdom and syntactic measures to illustrate the efficacy of space design as a strategic decision making tool, instead of just an accommodator of functions.