Research On Marketing Strategy Improvement Of X Shopping Mall

Since 1990 s,shopping malls have gradually replaced traditional department stores and flourished in China.Since 2016,more than 500 new shopping malls have been opened in China every year.Most shopping malls are similar in appearance,circulation flow design,trade mix,service and marketing activities.The homogenization of shopping mall and keen competition become more and more serious.In 2015,the average commercial area per person in Foshan was 0.48 square meters which was far ahead of Guangzhou(0.27 square meters per person)and Shenzhen(0.4 square meters per person).The number of shopping mall opened between 2018 to 2020 in Foshan is on the top list in China.However,the slow population growth,wide spread of resident,the excessive shopping mall,and keen competition,together with the well-development of e-commerce and speedy logistics delivery and also the outbreak of Coronavirus since 2020,some shopping malls are not able to self-sustain.The continuous increasing in vacancy rate of shops lead to high operation pressure of shopping mall.X Shopping mall,located in Chancheng District of Foshan belongs to Hong Kong S Group.It was opened in 2018.As the first shopping mall of S Group,S Group has high expectance of this mall and willing to carry out good marketing at all costs.S Group adopts the Marine features as its main theme so as to create a special and unique marine feeling to the customers.However,the resulting effect is not obvious.The opening rate of X Shopping mall is below 90% since its opening four years ago.Although customer flow and sales increased year by year,the average sales per square meter did not increase significantly.Marketing strategy is crucial for X Shopping mall to survive and grow in the severe competition in Foshan.In view of the above situation,this paper takes X Shopping mall as the research subject and use marketing theories such as STP strategy and 7P strategy as theory guidance.Through the research,on site survey,interviews,questionnaire and associated methods to find out the existing situation and problems of marketing strategy of X shopping mall as well as to study on the ground reasons that cause the problems.Also,this paper analyzes the external environment by using PEST method and the internal environment as well,uses SWOT methods to make the marketing strategy choices,and provide suggestions on improvement of marketing strategy of X shopping mall.Through the research,this paper finds out that the main problems in marketing strategy of X shopping mall are that: target market is too large,market positioning is not clear,trade mix is unreasonable,marketing activities are not attractive and poor in data collection and analysis.The main causes of these problems are: layout limitation,affection of Hongkong experience,emphasis too much on rent,rely on the contractors too much and lack of comprehensive and systematic digitalization.This paper conducts market segmentation and market targeting for X shopping mall,and fix its market positioning as middle grade,happy family gathering shopping mall with ocean theme.And provide specific improvement suggestions of marketing strategy for X shopping mall.The research can also serve as good reference and valuable for those shopping malls which are similar with X shopping mall.