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Shopping Centers Today -> September 2002
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MALL OWNERS HARNESSING WEB TO GENERATE SALES
By Donna Mitchell
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| Customers sign up on Taubman’s site to receive e-mails about sales and special offers from their favorite retailers. Crown American Realty Trust operates a similar system. |
It didn’t bother Taubman Centers or Crown American Realty Trust in the least to learn recently that significant numbers of their patrons had gone shopping over the Internet. On the contrary, they were pleased, given that those customers were using the REITs’ e-mail notification programs and did their actual buying at shopping centers belonging to the two.
Like a growing number of retail REITs, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Taubman and Johnstown, Pa.-based Crown American are using their Web sites to market directly to consumers. More than 450,000 shoppers participate in a Taubman-run “e-bulletin” program that informs them about sales, promotions and new merchandise at the stores inside Taubman’s malls. When Taubman surveyed about 1,000 e-bulletin participants in January, 72 percent reported making a trip to the mall because of something they’d read in their weekly e-mail notices. Thirty-two percent said the alerts prompted between three and five mall trips a month, according to Taubman officials.
At www.taubman.com, shoppers can access links to their local Taubman mall and request information about whichever stores they select.
“Any information they sign up for, we can get it,” said Carol Gies, Taubman’s vice president of corporate marketing services.
Taubman, which has run the program for two years, employs a full-time “tenant coordinator” at each center to gather sales and promotional information from participating stores each week. That information is then loaded onto Taubman’s proprietary software for distribution to participating customers.
Retailers have embraced the program, Taubman says. More than 90 percent of its 4,000 tenants participate. The REIT benefits too, of course, from a boost in productivity and exposure.
Lucky Brand, a denim apparel store at The Mall at Short Hills (N.J.), says business increased by 12 percent after it began participating in the e-bulletin program on Feb. 1, 2001.
“We’re a relatively new label and not a lot of people know about us,” said store manager Kim Klein. “I strongly believe that [the program] has been a huge force in the growth of our business.”
Crown American’s program, ShopDotCom, is just over two years old and works in much the same way as Taubman’s. One difference is that in addition to having a marketing director gather information from retailers, the tenants can also submit data themselves, said Christine A. Menna, SCMD, the company’s vice president of corporate marketing and communications.
Crown American developed its own software for ShopDotCom and has licensed the product to four other mall owners: JP Realty, Salt Lake City, which launched its Web site last August (Chicago-based General Growth Properties bought JP Realty in July); Mid-Atlantic Realty Trust, Lutherville, Md., which licensed the software to promote its only enclosed shopping center, the 650,000-square-foot Harford Mall, Bel Air, Md.; and two other independently owned malls.
Crown American gleans valuable information about its customers through the service. For instance, “More men are signing up for the information,” said Menna. At last count, in June 2002, 24 percent of the 43,000 ShopDotCom participants were men, up from 17 percent in December 2000.
“The e-mail program is hitting our target market for sure,” Menna said.
 | Current Issue November 2008 |