ABSTRACT

Retail sector in India has been growing rapidly. Major corporate have entered the sector
which was earlier dominated by the local stores. As part of the growing organised retail in
India new and modern formats of shopping have started emerging. Shopping malls are one of
those formats which have started coming up in large numbers. Initial growth of malls was in
the metros and now it has spread to smaller towns as well. The shoppers in India who earlier
shopped at the local kirana stores and traditional markets have readily embraced the
shopping malls. Shopping malls offered many advantages over the traditional markets.
Pleasant ambience, protection from extreme weather conditions, convenience in terms of
escalators and lifts, comfort of shopping, eating and watching movies at the same place, wide
choice of shops, range of food options through food courts to name a few. The first few
malls that have come up in India were at Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Later many malls have
become operational at all the metros. However, the rush to be there in the mall boom has not
gone well with all the malls. As the number of malls in the same locality was going up, some
of the malls started struggling to survive. As the location related advantages have started to
thin footfalls have started going down and retailer vacancy levels have started going up.
Clearly, lack of planning and ambiguous positioning started showing their impact on the
business. This resulted in poor footfall and retailer reluctance to occupy the malls. The
purpose of this research is to find out positioning related factors influencing malls and
suggest appropriate positioning for malls. The study included literature review and empirical
research. Multidimensional Scaling was used to find out the positioning of malls through
perceptual maps. Later using Structural Equation Modeling, a structural model was
developed and tested to assist mall related decision making. The study was conducted at
Delhi NCR. Data was collected from mall developers/managers, retailers and shoppers from
this region through structured questionnaires and interviews. Software tools, SPSS and Amos
were used for the data analysis. The results have shown that for majority of the malls,
positioning was similar and highlighted the need for clear positioning strategies. The study
has identified the factors influencing positioning of malls in India, brought out the need for
repositioning for some of the existing malls and identified the positioning slots for new malls
planned. The structural model developed depicts the relationships between mall constructs,
shopper satisfaction and patronage behaviour. A detailed analysis of the data along with
recommendations and suggestions has been presented in the report.

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 LIST OF ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS

BMI Business Monitor International

CAGR Compounded Annual Growth Rate

CFA Confirmatory Factor Analysis

CFI Confirmatory Fit Index

CGPS Consumer Protection and Guidance Society

DFI Diary Farm International

DINK Double Income No Kids

FDI Foreign Direct Investment

FMCG Fast Moving Consumer Goods

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GLA Gross Leasable Area

GRDI Global Retail Development Index

ICSC International Council of Shopping Centres

MGR Mass Grocery Retail

MDS Multidimensional Scaling

NCR National Capital Region

NDFL Nilgiris Dairy Farm Ltd

NFI Normed Fit Index

OTC Over the Counter

RFI Relative Fit Index

RMSEA Root Mean Square of Approximation

SEM Structural Equation Modeling

TLI Tucker Lewis Index

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