We help under-performing shopping centers adjust to changing markets. We help new Shopping Centers assort the right store mix that is the best fit to their consumer base and the new line-up of competition.

The Shopping Center industry has changed more in the last five years than in the last fifty—when the first suburban mall opened. Department stores have been displaced as “must-have” anchors. Today’s shoppers are just as likely to find their new mall to be an open-air (Lifestyle) center anchored by a bookstore, sporting goods mega store, restaurant, or discount big box.

Older, “B” shopping malls are the most in jeopardy. Sometimes the change is cataclysmic, as with the closing of an anchor department store due to merger or bankruptcy. More often, it is just a gradual decline in tenant business, occupancy and rental rates due to new competition or a change in the consumer base.

For these Centers, 4Insights reassesses the consumer market, shopping patterns, and the competition—in all formats. We can then find the best opportunity or new “market positioning” for the underperforming Center. It all begins with the stores. We create a retail strategy and a detailed plan with specific categories and stores that will better match the market and boost the earning power of the ailing Center.

Our other services that are essential to improving ailing shopping center performance:

• An audit of the physical premises to identify items that are hindering shoppers’ experience
• The creation of a re-launch marketing strategy, aimed at: targeted consumers in the trade area.
• Evaulation of the Center’s potential to earn incremental income through
  • Temporary in-line tenants
  • “Cart” program in the common area ( free-standing retail merchandising units)
  • Sponsorships from outside business

Retailers and Restaurants

Shoppers now have a wide choice of shopping and dining venues. Their trips have become fragmented according to what they want to buy with each trip. . We know how consumers decide when and where to shop and dine, based on our interviews of 36,000 consumers in 30 shopping centers across the U.S. The result is that your competition now comes in many formats and locations, from Lifestyle Malls to Main Streets.

We help retailers and restaurants find the strongest markets and specific sites, and estimate your realistic trade areas—based on the market and your real competition. This is a critical part of site location that requires extensive experience in the industry.

4Insights, Inc. combines this first hand industry knowledge with the latest research technology to deliver the following information for your selection of new store locations:

• Your highest potential customer profile--from your own customer records--or market profiles of your top performing stores.
• Identification of your prime competitors by location and merchandise category
• Audit of existing premises to identify shopping/dining experience positives and negatives
• Market positioning and branding ‘points of difference’ for marketing communications.

We interpret all of the above information and deliver merchandising plans (tenant mix) for shopping centers and districts; and for retailers, we pinpoint the best markets and specific sites for your next store.