A huge influx of sparkling malls with finely tuned marketing strategies has certainly gripped every shopping enthusiast in this millennium city. However, with the growing competition theme or speciality malls are setting new trends and transforming the fundamental activity of shopping into a lifestyle statement.



Theme malls is the new trend adopted by promoters and developers to add a touch of exclusivity to the new malls coming up the city.

Ranging from the malls for meant exclusively for marriage shopping, IT-professionals, mall-cum-hotel to discount-malls, the developers are unveiling projects based on the requirements of local retailers and their future business potential.

As per the business strategy, developers are focusing on developing theme malls in order to convert footfalls into some real business for shop owners.

These ?solo? malls are believed to be more popular than the ?multi-hued? ones. The first such speciality mall was the Gold Souk in Gurgaon, which is dedicated entirely to jewellery collection. This mall houses some of the biggest brands in the jewellery business in India as well as abroad.

While talking to The Tribune, Aerens Gold Souk international Ltd, vice-chairman, Ashish Gupta said initially, people in India had a craze for a mall, but now the concept is shifting towards more modern and hi tech malls. He said serious buyers always want to shop at a place where there is variety and these speciality malls bring all brands under one roof. He said the concept of theme malls not only benefits the buyers but the sellers also get quality customers.

He said the concept of theme malls will also increase the conversion rate for the retailers. Gold Souk has conversion of around 80 per cent per annum as only serious buyers visit the mall for shopping.

A spokesmen of DLF said currently the company is working on four different formats regarding the setting up of malls, which include neighbourhood, premium, destination and luxury malls. These would cater to different customer segments with specific requirements.

He said among the theme malls the company is building Emporio Mall at Vasant Kunj, which will be a luxury mall. ?This 3.2 lakh sq ft. mall will house leading international and national luxury retailers. This super luxury mall will bring together the world's top brands to the Indian market. The mall is expected to have more than 100 outlets. Both neighbourhood malls and theme malls have their own catchments and retail mix and so one cannot really make a choice between them?.

Raheja Developers, GM (Sales and Marketing) Harinder Dhillon stated that as the market scenario is changing due to better awareness and tremendous infrastructure development, the company is planning to come up with such malls soon. He said the concept of these theme malls blends well with the kind of busy schedules people have these days.

These specialised malls fulfil the needs of a particular segment. All latest brands of a particular genre are available at one place with different qualities and buyers don't have to run from pillar to post to get the best.