Built and designed over a space of 3,20,000 square feet with two basement parking spaces, MGB Felicity Mall, the first of its kind in Nellore, is the biggest mall of Andhra Pradesh. The mall encompasses a variety of retail outlets featuring different brands, apparel, food court, games and movies.
In an exclusive interaction with IMAGES Retail, Machani Gangadhar Gopala Krishna, Joint Managing Director, spoke about the success and overwhelming response and joy that Felicity Mall is giving to the shoppers of Nellore.
He said that the prime focus of Felicity Mall was providing good customer experience.
“We ensure that our staff is courteous in order to welcome patrons. We also emphasize on conducting traditional and situation-based events, a completely new innovation for the people of Andhra Pradesh. We have been conducting ‘Shopping Carnival’ in which additional benefits are passed to customer,” he said.
“We aim to please with the provision of many more amenities including baby strollers, wheel chairs for consumers who need them. Special attention is also given to mall hygiene. We also have a mall radio which plays music and other important announcements throughout the day,” he added.
Integrating Technology & Omnichannelization
Felicity Mall has a dedicated software which manages and generates all reports (DMR). This exclusive software is also used to monitor the energy consumption in real time and analyses the losses to control. Mall generated solar energy is also tracked through separate software in real time.
“We also have a software to better facilitate parking in the mall. Through this, counting, categorization and stay-time of the vehicles can be tracked in real time,” Gopala Krishna stated.
The mall management is in favour of Omnichannelization of malls. “Since most of the tenant operating is operating on the revenue share basis, maximum amount of business, service and profit can be made in this case.”
Retail Mix & Revenue
Felicity Mall has the best brand mix collection keeping in mind customer requirements. The brand boasts of being a one stop destination for shopping, dining and entertainment.
“We have introduced many new brands both international and national in the city. Big Bazaar is our anchor store, and Max and Trends are the mini anchor tenants. We also have major food outlets such as McDonald’s, KFC and Dominos in the mall along with entertainment and gaming area. In total, Felicity Mall currently has 68 brands and we look up to add few more to the list,” Gopala Krishna stated.
The mall also has a robust entertainment segment including Bowling and Cricket, which is extremely popular. There is a kids’ entertainment zone on the ground floor. Apart from this, the mall is planning to invite Smaaaash and Ski India to set up shop.
With the launch of many stores, the mall seems to be taking the impeding e-commerce threat in its stride. The management is confident that brick-and-mortar is the future of retail, self-assured that physical, in collaboration with digital – phygital – is the way forward.
“A mall is happening. It’s vibrant, full of activities and attracts a lot of consumers. We have already conducted 34 events since the launch of the mall and rolled out a 128-event day calendar for the current year. We are confident this will attract visitors. We are also very active on social media – mainly Facebook and Instagram. These mediums are big parts of our marketing strategy and we attract a lot of consumers over the digital medium,” Gopala Krishna said.
He however, categorically added that at present they did not let retailers promote their e-commerce portals inside the mall to ensure that the mall managed to retain the maximum number of consumers, and up the revenue.
Currently, the mall has entered into various revenue sharing models with different retailers depending on the brand and business which varies from 10 to 20 percent. For some of the anchor stores, it works on MG+RS (Minimum Guarantee + Revenue Share) which values between 4-5 percent apart from minimum guarantee rental. In total, we have revenue sharing with 14 retailers in the mall,” Gopala Krishna explained.
He added that fashion was the biggest player for Felicity Mall and that since the mall’s launch, the fashion category has generated more turnover than any other, even food.
The mall is concentrating on polishing the food segment with the introduction of national and international culinary stores, mixed with the flavor of local city. This is attracting a large number of visitors to the mall from all segments of society and Gopala Krishna is confident that Felicity Mall is on its way to becoming ‘the’ destination for brands to set up shop in the food court.
“For us, fashion is the bigger player. Since the launch, fashion has generated more turnovers over food. Fashion did around Rs 60 crore business for us, whereas food’s contribution was Rs 22.25 crore in the same time. The entertainment section contributes 3 percent of the overall mall turnover,” he said.
CSR: Taking Responsibility Seriously
With the introduction of mandatory spending on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) brought on by the Companies Act 2013, companies in India and across the world have shifted focus from anticipating change and understanding the impact of this change to actually being the change.
CSR activities by malls today is helping scale customer engagement and brand popularity and Felicity Mall is not staying behind.
“We have conducted eight activities related to awareness of Breast Cancer, Girl Child, Note Book Distribution to Poor Students, Blood Donation Campaigns, Save Water Campaigns, and Medical Camps. CSR initiatives are important to us since we receive a large number of footfall when we conduct them as messages through the mall reach patrons fast,” Gopala Krishna said.
“Also, it is our responsibility to preserve the natural resources like water and energy, therefore we do regular activities to create awareness to utilize them in limited manner,” he concluded.
