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MALL CULTURE
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A Comprehensive Study on the Emerging Mall Culture in INDIA

as Against the Existing Retail Chain System

: Coursework:
Group Project
Consumer Behaviour
Emergence of Mall Culture in India

Submitted To:

Submitted by:

Ms. Ruchi Shah

Alok Nath

Ms. Urvashi Nandrajog

Anubhav Mishra
Dipam Das

Executive Summary
It has been noticed so far, that the retailers, with their glitzy shops and direct consumer interface have
been in the limelight as a key factor driving the growth of organized retail in the country. However, mall
development has been driven primarily by the real estate developers who have started looking at retailing
as seriously as corporate and residential sectors. The boom has been fueled by the attractive returns
obtained by the mall developers over the last couple of years.
With high novelty value, the malls are almost becoming a status symbol for the communities, generating a
substantial excitement and curiosity amongst the consumers. With increased customer acceptance of
organized retailing, there has been an increasing demand for high quality space from large format retailers,
the food and apparel chains and the multiplex operators. Mall development has attracted many real estate
developers across all large and mid-size cities.
Now, this study investigated Indian consumers motivations and intentions, especially the youth
generation, to patronize contemporary retail formats, such as shopping malls. The study attempts to
explain Indian consumers shopping attitudes and subjective norms in addition to motivations on the
intentions to patronize malls in India. This study provides useful insights into mall shopping behavior of
Indian consumers. Mall managers and retailers in India will benefit from knowledge of Indian consumers
clusters. Theoretical contributions include an understanding of the multidimensionality of the cultural-self
construct and the antecedents of Indian mall shoppers patronage intentions. Results of this study provide
a deeper understanding of the reasons Indian consumers go shopping, and specifically why they patronize
malls. Findings from this research provide important insight for retailers strategic marketing activities
directed at different consumer groups. It is posited that effective marketing communication for different
consumer groups could be improved by better understanding the cultural- orientation, mindsets, and
shopping motives of Indian consumers.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Concept of Malls
SWOT Analysis
Problem Statement
Purpose
Objective
Research Methodology
Analysis & Findings
Limitations
Recommendations

Introduction
A shopping mall (or simply mall), shopping center, or shopping arcade is a building or set of buildings
that contain stores, and has interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from store to
store. The walkways may or may not be enclosed.
A shopping mall is typically, a shopping complex connected by walkways. It provides shopping as well as
entertainment options to the target consumers. It generally, contains one anchor store, which consumes
twenty five percent of its retail space. In addition a mall contains specialty stores for clothes, accessories,
home needs, books, as well as food court, multiplexes and entertainment zones.
A Shopping Mall or Shopping Center is a building or Set of buildings that contain retail units, with
interconnecting Walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit.
Mall is generally used to refer to a large Shopping area usually composed of a single building which
contains multiple shops. Usually anchored by one or more departmental stores surrounded by a parking
lot. Therefore mall can refer to a place where a collection of shops all adjoins a pedestrian area that allows
shoppers to walk without interference from vehicle traffic.
In most of the world the term shopping center is used in North America and large extent in Asia it is
called as Shopping Mall.
Malls in Ireland are pronounced as Maills, are typically very small shopping centers placed in the center
of town.
Shopping centers in the United Kingdom can be referred to as shopping centers, shopping precincts or
just precincts.

Concept of Malls
The concept of Retail as entertainment came to India with the advent of malls. Mall fever has touched
every facet of Indian society. Whatever is the income stratum of consumers, malls make no distinction in
proffering most-revered national and global brands. Shopping Mall refers to a set of homogenous and
heterogeneous shops adjoining a pedestrian, or an exclusive pedestrian street, that make it easygoing for
shopper to walk from store to store without interference from vehicular traffic. Malls are incorporated
with a whole bank of lifts and escalators for smooth transit of shoppers. Malls are located in proximity to
urban outskirts, and ranges from 60,000 sq ft to 70,000 sq ft and above. The future of organized retailing is
largely in the hands of mall where the shoppers get quality, quantity, inspirational appeal, recreation
facilities and ambience. Under one roof, the flashy malls promises just about everything under the sun,
from foreign gizmos to the very desi, virtually an airbus full of national and international brands, to say the
least. Malls offer a plethora of attractions-high profile shopping, impulse eating establishment, a glitzy and
glamorous environment... to discerning shoppers of more refined tastes, who are more concerned with
quality and fashion and less concerned with budgets. Mall reveals six factors namely comfort diversity,
luxury, mall essence, entertainment, and convenience which are a source of cynosure.

In India, malls have transformed shopping from a need driven activity to a leisure time entertainment. The
quality mall space which was just one million square feet in 2002 has accomplished new milestones of 40
million square feet and 60 million square feet in 2007 and 2008 respectively. There is a paradigm shift in
the mall scenario, from just 3 malls in the year 2000; the country witnessed 220 malls in the year 2006.
Exhibiting signs of further enlargement India is likely to have more than 600 in 2010 and 715 malls in 2015,
with an estimated cumulative retail space of 100 million sq. ft. Shopping malls in India are reckoned to
worth Rs. 38,447 crore by the year ending 2010. Real estate corporations like DLF and Unitech are coming
forth with the plans catering the ever-escalating demand of shopping malls. In the next four to five years
Rs 65,000 is budgeted to be invested in retail real estate development. In most of traditional Indian malls,
around 30 percent of space is allocated to apparel retailers while 12-20 percent space is dedicated to Food
and Beverages. Indian malls vary between 35,000 sq ft to 10, 00,000 sq. ft. while U.S. version is between
4,00,000 sq ft to one million sq ft. . The largest malls in Indian metropolitan cities enjoy 25,000 footfalls per
day which hikes to an average of 40,000 on weekends. Due to radical revival of shopping and consumerism
shopping mall syndrome has hit India in all earnest. Even though the malls are mushrooming from metros
and mini metros to tier III cities, the spread of malls is highly concentrated in India. North Zone is having
the peak attractiveness with 39 percent while South, East, and West Zone respectively holds 18 percent, 10
percent, 33 percent of total malls pie. Creating artificial product scarcity, cheap imitation, and taking
customer for granted are the talks of yesteryears, thanks to the mall culture. Further, shopping mall is the
paradise where various shopping motives like peer group association, impulse shopping, hedonic, status
consciousness, market mavens, economic motive, utilitarian motive etc. can be fulfilled in one shot.

THE 4 As OF MALLS (different parameters for development of mall)

In August 2005, a group of marketing theorists like Philip Kotler, Jagdish Sheth, Venkat Ramaswamy,
Nirmalya Kumar and Jerry Wind gathered at Bentley College in Massachusetts, US to discuss the future of
marketing. Some of them felt that Kotlers marketing mix is in trouble since it is not built around the
customer and therefore an alternative framework called the 4 As is suggested that is far more consumercentric. The degree of success depends on how close to 100% a company is able to achieve on each of the
4 As.

A simple formula is used to evaluate the overall marketing program. That is on the basis of these 4 As and
is known as the market value coverage.

Market Value Coverage = Acceptability*Affordability*Accessibility*Awareness

Since the malls are booming, We have considered the 4 As of malls. Here we are discussing how the malls
have addressed these As. We have also mentioned why the malls are acceptable, affordable and
accessible to the consumers. Furthermore, they are aware of these malls mainly because of the variety of
promotions done at malls to attract people. It is because the malls are acceptable, affordable, accessible,
and the mall mangers create proper awareness, more and more malls are coming up and hence the malls
are booming. But we have to wait, for the future in order to see how many of these malls will actually
survive in this face of fierce competition.

ACCEPTABILITY

Most Indian consumers have started preferring malls to other traditional formats of shopping. It is because
of this preference amongst the Indian consumers regarding malls; we can say that they are gradually
accepting the concept of malls. Following are the reasons for the preference and thus the acceptance of
malls in India:

Convenience: The Indian consumers search for convenience and shopping in a world-class ambience. People
find that they have less time than before because of a number of factors that include the increasing number
of nuclear families, working women, greater work pressure and increased commuting time. Hence they are
looking for convenience, especially when it comes to shopping so that they dont have to run all over the city
to complete their shopping. Thus they prefer shopping at malls since they provide the customers with the
different variety of products under one roof and hence prove to be convenient for them.

Ambience: Indian consumer prefers the infrastructure at malls. It gives them an international
shopping experience. Moreover for the SECA+ and SECA customers the ambience in mall is very
important. They do not like to shop at places where the noise levels are excessively high, or a place
which is not well maintained.
Entertainment: Families seek worthwhile entertainment combined with shopping, food, and
options like theatres, bowling alleys and gaming zones. The members of the family find what they
need, in one mall, which offers provisions for entertainment, like multiplexes, culinary delights at
food courts that serve both Indian and international cuisine. The needs of the entire family can be
met at 1 place. The children can amuse themselves with games; the wife with the household
shopping and then can also dine there.
Product availability, quality, display and customer services: The customers also pay attention to
factors like product availability, quality, and display and customer services. All the possible products
from clothes to groceries etc. are made available at malls. Moreover, they are of superior quality.
Consumers now have a wider rage of choices, as liberalization of the market for consumer goods
has bought many well-known international brands to India and there has been marked
improvement in the quality of local manufacturing.
Self-service format: This format of shopping has brought about great changes in customer
behavior, leading to a higher propensity to purchase, when people are allowed touch and feel the
products without unnecessary interference from sales attendants.

Thus we can say that the malls are acceptable because they look into customer value. Value
from the point of view of customers is the experience that he gets while shopping at the mall. They
basically look for experience shopping that is Shoppertainment The malls effectively look into
making the experience of the customer a memorable one by the fact that they give so much
importance to ambience, entertainment, quality and display of goods etc.

AFFORDABILITY

As mentioned earlier, the malls cater to the food, retail and entertainment related requirements of the
consumer. Under each of these categories there are various options available to the customer. He can visit

the outlet that best suits his requirement and is also within his budget. For example in case of food, there
are many food outlets in the food court. Depending upon his budget he can either choose to go to an
expensive Chinese restaurant or just have simple fast food. Similar is the case of retail. The customer can
either go to a designer boutique or any other retail outlet to buy clothes depending upon his budget.

Thus the variety of outlets that offer a wide range of prices present in a mall caters to the affordability
factor of its target audience.

Thus, malls are affordable because they try to address the consumer costs by providing variety of outlets
that offer a wide range of prices to the customer. The customer can buy from whichever outlet best suits
his budget.

ACCESSIBILITY

Since the malls are being preferred and accepted by people, more and more malls are being developed. In
fact statistics say that India is all set to have over 230 malls, and quality retail real estate space of over 40
million sq.ft. of quality retail real estate space by 2006. This shows that the malls are coming up almost
throughout the country and hence the accessibility of such malls will become even easier. In fact in
Gurgaon, that is called the city of malls, has malls in almost each and every street. A mall before coming
up has to do the analysis of the location it plans to set up in. Location analysis has to be done keeping in
mind the customers accessibility. See Location Analysis.

Again malls are accessible since they look into consumer convenience. Convenience factor depends upon
the location. To make the malls easily accessible to their target customers, malls are ensuring that they do
proper location analysis for the same.

AWARENESS

There is awareness of the malls amongst the consumers, which can be ascertained by the fact that the
malls are being tremendously accepted as mentioned earlier. Basically the new malls entering the market
try to create awareness about their mall in the market by way of promotions. Moreover even the existing
malls try to increase the footfalls in their malls by way of promotions.

SWOT Analysis
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4

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3
4
5

STRENGTH
Skyscrapers with perfect blend of shopping,
eating and entertainment, in short
shoppertainment.
Developed in contemporary style, these flashy
malls promises just about everything under the
sun, from foreign gizmos to the very desi
brands.
Attractive destinations for civic and official
meetings, hang out, reducing stress.
Procure goods directly from factories and
farmers in case of lifestyle and food/beverages
respectively.
Bouquet of value propositions like value for
time, value for quality, value for experience,
value for money.
High quality shopping environment quality
assortment at variant shopping format.

OPPORTUNITIES
Tier II and Tier III cities are still untapped.
Growing urbanization and increase in
purchasing power of consumers.
Outsourcing from other developed retail
market.
Progressive growth of apparitional consumer
class.
Believing more in spending than savings, as
most of the population is youth (with median
age 24 and 35 percent of population below 14
years).

WEAKNESS
Mall developers are enacting as mall
managers Retail not accredited as an
industry in India Complicated taxation
system.
Lack of adequate infrastructure including
supply chain, parking facilities.

Unavailability and skyrocketing

prices of prime catchments areas.
Poor positioning and zoning of malls.

Shortage of qualified human personnel in

the area of facility management, creative
firms, and design houses.
Lack of differentiated offerings i.e. same
mix of shopping, foods and films.

THREATS
Non availability of adequate finance.
Undeveloped supply chain.
Vigorous competition from unorganized
retailers Keeping up brand loyalty.
Disturbance in income strata of consumers
greatly influence malls growth.
Threat from online players, (even though
internet penetration is low in India.

1. Problem Statement
The new retail/mall culture in India is growing at a phenomenal pace. While shopping malls have been
extensively researched, most of these studies have been conducted in the U.S, Europe and Asia-Pacific
regions Minimal research has examined store-choice criteria, shopping motivations, or patronage
intentions for grocery stores for Indian consumers; no research has addressed their intentions to patronize
malls. This paucity in the consumer behavior literature is attributed to the fact that shopping malls are a
newer concept in India, as opposed to other regions of the world. The lack of existing research about
Indian consumers mall-patronage intentions and antecedentsconsumers motivations, attitudes, and
subjective normssupports the need for this study.

Purpose
This research examines Indian consumers in relation to cultural-self, shopping motivations, and mallpatronage intentions. With India identified as one of the most attractive destinations for retail
development, it is surprising that such minimal research exists regarding consumer shopping behavior in
India. Thus, it is vital to understand consumers mall-patronage intentions and their antecedents, including
motivations and attitudes, in India.

Objective
To know1.
2.
3.
4.

The purpose of shopping in malls

The frequency of the visits to the malls
Expenditure pattern in a single visit
Seeking recommendations from the consumers part for further up gradations in the mall services

Methodology
For the research study we targeted a focus group of college students. From the focus group study, data
were collected via mailing questionnaire. Data from the filed-up questionnaires have been initially
assessed putting them through the pie-chart model. Since the focus group we studied upon was between
the age group of 18-26, the responses were pretty contemporary. The number of respondents participated
in the survey were approximately 30.
The methods we adopted in this survey were Descriptive Research method and Exploratory Research
method where from we could gather the information on a descriptive and understandable level. We could
find the sentiments, attitude and motivational factors that influence the consumers going for shopping in
a mall.

Analysis & Findings

Gender

Male

16

59%

Female

11

41%

Age( in years)

15-20

0%

21-29

24

89%

30-39

0%

40-49

4%

50 and above

0%

Local Area of Residence

gurgaon
sector 53 gurgaon
nashik
Chandigarh
bhiwani,haryana
Panipat
Derawal nagar
East delhi
geetanjali enclave
Guragaon
iilm insitute
Vadodara
gujarat
Gurgaon
Ghaziabad
iilm hostel
Coimbatore

Monthly Income Level

Below 10,000

15

56%

10,000- 25,000

19%

25,000-50,000

11%

50,000 and above

15%

1) Where do you normally shop at most?

Retail outlets

15%

Departmental stores

7%

Malls

21

78%

Others

0%

2) Do you like doing shopping at mall?

Yes

25

93%

No

4%

3) How you as a consumer feel about the concept of Mall Culture?(rate on the
scale of 5 as most acceptable)

11%

0%

15%

11

41%

33%

4) How often do you shop at a mall?

Once a week

15%

Once a fortnight

19%

10

37%

Once in 2-3 months

26%

Once in 6 months

4%

Once a month

5) What do you usually go to a Mall for? (Tick more if you like)

To Shop

15

56%

Food and Entertainment (like movies, eating etc.)

18

67%

To hang out

14

52%

To window- shop

33%

Other Reason

7%

6) What product categories do you/ would you purchase at a Mall? (Tick more if
you like)
Apparels

23

85%

Cosmetics

22%

Footwear

19

70%

Accessories

14

52%

Electronics

10

37%

Food & Groceries

13

48%

Music

19%

Books and Magazines

19%

Medical and Health Products

0%

Household Items

30%

Others

15%

7) On an average how much do you spend at each visit to a mall?

Less than Rs 500

4%

Between Rs 500- Rs 1000

19%

Rs 1000- Rs 2000

11

41%

Rs 2000- Rs 5000

26%

Rs 5000 and above

11%

8) Do promotions attract you to shop at Malls?

Yes

21

78%

No

22%

9) Would you go to a mall if it would charge an entry-fee?

Yes

11

41%

No

16

59%

10) What are the services that you would like to avail of in a mall? (Tick more if
you like)
Baby Sitter and Wheelchairs

4%

Locker Rooms

15

56%

ATM

22

81%

Information Desk and PCO Facility

30%

Porter (one who carries luggage and related objects)

19%

18

67%

7%

Parking facility
Any other

11) Would you recommend people to shop at malls? (Yes or No with a reason)
no..they are crowded
Yes because of offers
YES
yes due to different brands
yes,availability of collection
yes as it is all under one single roof
no because they charge more than other
yes,it has a wide range of varities
yes you get most of the brands under one roof.
yes
Yes because its easy to access all kinda of brand in malls rather than going to single single outlet
yes because there u can get lots of stuff at one place
Yes because you can find everything in the same place
yes. its a nice place to shop for
clothes
YES
yes because you have many other things to do instead of shopping...

Yes upto some extend

Yes
Yes, because we get many product under one roof

12) Any recommendations for the Malls in any concern?

no
Cleanliness is a concern
Nothing
No
Water stalls at every corner of mall
improving the hygiene factor
sitting areas must be increased
ban children for certain hours
No, thanks !!

Number of daily responses

Limitations

The present study was conducted in Delhi NCR region; however data was extended to various other region
of India to get better results and dimensions from different prospective.

The respondents unwillingness towards the research was problem for conducting this study.

The market is dynamic in nature so the results from this study are only being utilised for short span of time.

The data collected for some demographic parameters is only of last few years. This limited the research as
the analysis would have being in more detail if the data was available for more years.

Recommendations
We would like to conclude our project, by giving the following recommendations.

Recommendations to Mall Managers:

Most people visit malls on monthly basis or even from time gaps ranging between 2-6 months. It may even
be beyond than that in some cases. So in order to attract people to malls on regular basis, malls should
organise promotions and events regularly say on weekly basis. They can also come up with frequent offers
for the customers that would attract people to come at malls.

Most of the people like shopping at a mall because of reasons like variety offered, ambience, convenience,
quality and the decent crowds at malls. Thus, mall managers should ensure that their mall looks into each of
these factors effectively. Whereas there are a few people who do not like shopping at a mall since they feel
that the malls are either too expensive, or are located at far away places or they are too crowded. In order to
induce such people to visit malls, mall managers should do proper location analysis. They should ensure that
their mall is centrally located so that it can attract most of its target audience. As far as the affordability
factor is concerned, they should try and inform the people that their mall does not only have expensive
outlets but also other outlets that would cater to their budgets. They may also come up with schemes, offers
and discounts that would be beneficial to the customers.

Since majority of the respondents go to the mall for retail followed by people who go for food and
entertainment, a mall manager has to ensure that he gives more importance to retail than to food &
entertainment. Though around 10-20% has to be occupied by food and entertainment since they serve as
add-ons but the malls managers should not forget the importance of retail in a mall. Thus, around 70-75%
space should be allocated to retail.

Most of the people purchase apparels at malls, followed by people who purchase footwear and accessories.
The mall manger has to ensure that besides apparel outlets, there are enough outlets for footwear and
accessories too so that the customer has enough variety to choose from. Moreover, product categories like
cosmetics; books; food and groceries; music; electronics; toys should not be ignored since people do visit
malls for purchase of such product categories too.

Since not many people are willing to spend a huge amount at malls, mall managers should induce people to
spend more by offering discounts, by providing them with attractive offers like free items on purchases etc.

Since a majority of the people said that promotions do attract them to shop at malls, all the malls should
definitely undertake promotional activities from time to time.

Malls should not charge an entry-fee since a majority of the people would not visit malls if it would do so.

More than a majority of the people said that they would like a mall to provide them with a printed mall map;
an information desk and adequate parking facility. Thus, mall managers should definitely provide these
facilities. Moreover, other facilities like babysitter; wheelchair; PCOs can also be provided by the mall
managers to attract people.