Why not come here to learn from the experience... Traditional shopping malls where young people worry about "only shopping but not buying"

In today's traditional shopping malls, more and more young people are beginning to "just shop but not buy." Go to a clothing store to try on clothes, go to a grocery store to look at daily necessities, get free samples at a cosmetics store, and finally go home satisfied - contemporary young people seem to have become an increasingly "immovable leek" of traditional consumerism.

In Chaoyang District, Beijing, "THEBOX Chaowai｜Young Power Center" recently opened. It is the second urban renewal project of Yingzhan Group after the success of the Shanghai urban renewal project "TX Huaihai". Targeting the customer group at young people aged 15-29 with low spending power has yielded surprisingly good results.

According to reports, during the trial operation period from June to August, THEBOX sold a total of 410,000 items, with total sales of nearly 100 million yuan.

To activate the consumption power of young people, what has THEBOX done right?

For THEBOX, since young people who are well-informed and not very wealthy like to "shopping without buying", they should simply use the method of art exhibitions to run shopping malls to make shopping "enjoyable" to the extreme.

THEBOX Chaowei | Zhu Yuan, deputy general manager of the Youth Power Center, said that they focus on "curated retail": a large number of art exhibitions, trendy activities, and fashion pop-ups are constantly rotating to fill the mall space and weaken the sense of commercial presence.

In the shopping mall, 60% of the leasable area is used for fixed stores, and the remaining 40% of the leasable area is used for exhibitions. The atrium of the shopping mall opens up multiple floors to form a large exhibition space of 3,000 square meters.

The benefits are obvious - the way of curated retail is to generate traffic first and then business. The stunning visual spectacle always attracts countless young people. They took photos, checked in and shared them on social media to guide more young people to come.

In shopping mall brand stores, curatorial retail is also implemented. In the trendy grocery brand "BADMARKET" store, the 200 square meters of space facing the street on the first floor has been used for curation, for guests to check in and take photos; the 400 square meters of space on the basement floor has been used as a business area for customers to choose Purchase exhibition derivatives.

Traditional businesses usually sign a lease for five or ten years, but young people are seeking innovation and change, and their preferences are constantly changing. In THEBOX, almost all the merchants settled in are host brands, and large chain brands are rare - the activity plans of large chain brands usually require layer upon layer of approval, which makes it difficult to adapt to THEBOX's high-frequency rotation of curatorial activities.

How quickly do THEBOX’s exhibitions change? Currently, the mall atrium alone accommodates three exhibition activities at the same time, with exhibition periods ranging from 4 to 8 weeks. The ongoing 2023 Beijing Barbie Dream Party Exhibition lasts from August to October. On the occasion of the release of the Barbie movie, it will bring an immersive shopping experience to girls who love Barbie to experience the global fashion and cultural benchmark.

The high-frequency rotation of curation also comes from the market demand of the brand. Take the sales of some trendy toy brands as an example. Their products themselves have a life cycle - the customer flow is extremely hot within a few weeks of the sale, but after the sale period, there are no people around, and there is no need for physical space. Therefore, many brands prefer to enter shopping malls through short-term exhibitions.

Many brands prefer to enter shopping malls through short-term exhibitions.

For shopping malls, giving up part of the rentable area for exhibitions may not necessarily result in loss of revenue. According to reports, short-term rental rents for events such as fashion releases and trend exhibitions are much higher than those for fixed stores. Top fashion events bring long-term benefits such as customer flow and popularity to shopping malls, and shopping malls are often willing to reduce or reduce part of the rent.

Bringing your own community and private domain traffic is an important criterion for THEBOX investment.

LAMFASTRUNNINGCLUB is a running group with more than 20,000 members. In THEBOX, it opened its first offline experience space. Relying on online private traffic, the club held many activities such as anniversary celebrations, running shoe sales, joint T-shirts, and beer relay runs within one month of its opening. They break away from the constraints of square footage and explore a new business model of "community retail".

THEBOX has a marketing team of more than 30 people. Its main job is to contact various personalized communities and activities to try to introduce different content into the mall. Zhu Yuan said, “For communities whose business models have yet to be explored, we will jointly organize short-term curatorial activities, such as the pickleball experience area previously set up. For communities that have certain operating capabilities but whose business models are not yet mature, we will Support the opening of 6-month pop-up stores, such as LAMFASTRUNNINGCLUB running groups. If these communities have the ability to continue operating, consider inviting long-term residents.”

Young people have distinctive personality labels. People who play skateboards, play basketball, keep pets, and love trendy brands... have formed independent individual communities. Young people within the community have sufficient desire to display and interact, and they are also willing to pay for their interests. When the physical space of a shopping mall becomes the home base of a personalized community, the transformation from personality and social interaction to consumption seems logical.

In THEBOX, affordable brands are growing together. At the BASEMENTFG store with an American retro style, the unit price of a piece of stylish clothing is only 100-300 yuan. This is also the upper price limit that most young people can make decisions without thinking too much.

The price that makes young people feel no psychological burden also inspires their enthusiasm for repurchase. You can never have too many T-shirts that you change every day, so why not buy another one? As you can imagine, the sales in the store are booming: a total of 68 fitting rooms are crammed into the approximately 500 square meter clothing store. Every weekend and holiday, there are still long queues in the fitting rooms and checkout counters.

Fashionable and affordable is the positioning of most THEBOX stores.

Fashionable and affordable is the positioning of most THEBOX stores. After mobilizing the enthusiasm of young consumers for shopping, affordable stores can also create outstanding results with high sales.