Digital disruption — an offshoot of technology, is affecting every industry, and the retail sector is no exception.In order to survive in an era to stay ahead of the stiff competition, shopping malls are taking stringent measures to attract and acquire new customers by leveraging ground-breaking digital technologies.

The winds of change brought by advancements are compelling mall owners with the objective of exceeding customers’ expectations.

Now let’s take a look at how Indian shopping malls are leveraging multi-channel strategies to create a winning formula. Mall owners are aware of the fact that to keep on top of trends, they need to deploy advanced technology that can be advantageous to the mall, the shoppers, and the retailers alike.

To that end, shopping mall owners are embracing digital technology with open arms to reorganise their business models so that they can introduce new ways and means to keep their customers engaged throughout their buying journeys with unlimited fun, food, and amusement.

In today’s multi-channel environment, you need a solid omni-channel customer engagement strategy to keep your consumers delighted and coming back for more.

Moreover, a multi-channel customer engagement strategy helps malls reinforce their relationships with consumers for driving repeat visits and increasing sales conversions.

This is done by creating and conveying gripping content via a website or social media platforms along with photo-sharing applications.

Some shopping malls are coming up with digital loyalty programmes to create deeper bonds with their customers.

This is a new concept that aims to boost overall customer experience in collecting real-time data to keep a tab on consumer behaviour, and their demographics; enhancing consumer visit and spending; improving brand reputation; building long-lasting partnership with tenants; and sending personalised push notifications to consumers.

These technologies can easily accumulate data pertaining to consumers’ behaviour which in turn helps malls to garner valuable insights on improving the quality of their products and services.

Thus, they play a key role in making mall loyalty programmes successful. Moreover, to access purchase-based consumer data, customers are tempted to scan their purchase invoices so that they can earn shopping reward points which can be later redeemed for e-gift vouchers, books, movie tickets, concert tickets, and much more.

Shopping malls are leveraging the latest technology to enhance customer satisfaction and address the grievances of customers in the best possible manner.

One of the most common troubles faced by shoppers is to find a parking space for their vehicles. To address this issue, car parking sensors are being installed to help shoppers detect the availability of empty parking spots.

Digital technologies are transforming the shopping habits of the millennial customers, thereby, posing a threat to conventional models of retail business.

However, a prudent mall owner knows how to respond positively to the digital disruption caused by digital technology. Instead of treating digital disruption as a problem, mall developers are leveraging digital disruption as an opportunity to reshape the shopping centers to meet customers’ evolving demands and establish a strong bond with them.

All things considered, it seems reasonable to conclude that digital disruption is a boon to the retail sector as it motivates mall owners to become more experimental in reinforcing their customer-retention tactics.

Shopping malls in India and abroad are getting a complete makeover to cater to the ever-growing expectations of the millennial customers.

If shopping malls want to win the battle against e-commerce retailers by getting consumers back into the physical retail stores, mall managers should keep an eye on the ever-changing retail landscape and consumer buying behaviour, and continue investing in ground-breaking technologies to find novel ways of attracting and amusing customers.

The writer is executive director, Pacific India