Shopping mall atrium, there are no available time slots left as the schedule is fully booked.

One summer night close to midnight, CapitaMall·Taiyanggong in Beijing had passed its business hours, and the atrium began to be rearranged overnight. Right after the previous exhibition booth event concluded, the booths and materials had to be dismantled and transported away quickly, before the staff of the next event moved in immediately for setup. They only had one night to arrange all the new exhibition booths, roll-up banners and various materials in place before the mall opened the next day.

"The schedule is extremely tight. Whoever's event expires today has to evacuate at night, and the next event must move in right away to take over," Wang Fang, General Manager of CapitaMall·Taiyanggong, told the Economic Observer, This tension stems from the "oversubscription" of atrium schedules.

This summer vacation, an automobile-themed event originally planned to cover July and August, but the mall could not provide a consecutive two-month schedule. In July, a large-scale exhibition was already scheduled in the atrium, which also needed to support the fan support events for Cai Xukun and Jay Chou. The mall finally had to compress the time of each event, squeeze out a weekend between the transitions of several events, and arrange the fan support event in the gap.

Renting out the atrium of the mall is not a new business. In the past, the atrium was mainly used for real estate project sales, automobile exhibitions and clothing clearance sales. Now, activities such as IP pop-ups, star fan support, sports experiences, and brand debut exhibitions are scrambling to book popular schedules during summer vacations and holidays. With limited locations, malls have the leeway to select projects: whether it can bring passenger flow, whether it matches the mall's positioning, and whether it can drive the sales of in-mall stores have become more important than a single venue rent.

Atrium in Short Supply

This summer vacation, CapitaMall·Taiyanggong received significantly more atrium cooperation intentions than in the same period of previous years, but only about 30% of them were finally implemented.

This is not an isolated case. A person who has been engaged in shopping mall operation for a long time told the Economic Observer that some malls only have 1 to 2 atrium locations, and popular schedules such as Spring Festival and summer vacation will be booked three months in advance. When the schedule is tight and the mall hopes to reach a settlement cooperation, some malls will try their best to adjust the schedule to let the brand side "cut in line". Sometimes the schedule is really unavailable, they can only give up and introduce the project to other malls.

Apart from the tight schedule, the business types of atrium tenants have also changed. According to Wang Fang, the projects currently entering the atrium are roughly divided into four categories: one is retail-oriented IP pop-up stores, focusing on selling goods, such as the Miniso co-branded pop-up store and the Pokémon pop-up store; the other is experience-oriented IP-themed exhibitions, which build large check-in scenes in the atrium and set up small peripheral sales areas at the same time; the third type is mainly for brand promotion, including star store visits, new product launches, member activities or brand anniversaries. In addition, the mall will also plan activities on its own to promote the linkage between external activities and in-mall brands.

Clothing brands have always been frequent visitors to the atrium, but their "activity content" has changed.

In the past, after clothing brands came to the atrium, they simply set up exhibition booths and temporary shelves to sell off-season products at a discount. Now, clothing brands prefer to display and sell new products of the current season, with a stronger intention to show their brand concepts. Another function of the atrium is to "connect customers". Wang Fang introduced that in CapitaMall·Taiyanggong, newly signed brands such as Beneunder will enter the atrium to exhibit and sell new products during the store decoration period to accumulate customers before the official opening; settled brands such as BLUE ERDOS, STACCATO, and ONLY will also set up temporary exhibition booths during the store re-decoration period to avoid interrupting contact with customers.

Of course, if the clothing brand only wants to carry out off-season promotions, the mall will not give up the scarce atrium location. A number of industry insiders told the Economic Observer, For the value excavation of atrium locations, shopping malls should not only consider whether the project can bring passenger flow, but also take into account its brand tonality and the feedback of permanent merchants in the mall. Clothing and sports brand merchants located on the first floor with long-term leases usually pay attention to what activities are being held in the atrium on the first floor of the mall. A project that does not match the mall's positioning or may affect the operation of surrounding stores may not be able to enter the atrium of the target mall even if it is willing to pay high rent.

In addition, different from the past short-term venue rental where the booth was removed after one round of exhibition and sales, atrium projects have begun to show the characteristics of long-term operation. CapitaMall·Taiyanggong said that in the past, atrium projects were dominated by short-term pop-ups lasting 3 to 7 days; now, the proportion of themed exhibitions lasting two weeks or even a month is increasing. Wang Fang introduced that the activity cycle is mainly determined by the resource party's investment and expected return, and some projects will balance the investment by extending the sales cycle.

Malls Are Not Only Calculating Venue Rent

The atrium is usually located on the first floor of the shopping mall, where it can attract the attention of customers from the main entrance, escalators and open areas on each floor. It is the public space with the most concentrated passenger flow and the largest display area in the mall.

Last year, CapitaMall·Taiyanggong stopped introducing traditional commodity clearance sales activities. Although short-term activities can bring venue rent, they will also take away business from long-term tenants. In Wang Fang's view, the atrium should not only be calculated by the venue rent, it is also a signboard for the mall to show to the outside world: "The content displayed in the atrium represents what types of customer groups the mall hopes to attract." For an atrium project, in addition to calculating the direct venue rent, the mall will also observe whether the activity can bring new passenger flow, whether it can drive the sales of permanent merchants in the mall, whether it can accumulate members and form return visits, and the spread of the project on social media.

This summer vacation, before holding Cai Xukun's official fan support event, CapitaMall·Taiyanggong first asked fans what catering discounts they wanted to get, and then communicated with the in-mall merchants one by one. Finally, 17 stores participated. Wang Fang introduced that more than 2,000 people showed up on the day of the event, and the sales of all participating stores increased to varying degrees. After this event spread on Xiaohongshu, fan groups of other stars also took the initiative to contact the mall to inquire about venue cooperation.

There is no unified charging standard for atrium leasing, and it is usually discussed on a case-by-case basis. Wang Fang introduced that for brands that want to occupy prime weekends to hold two or three days of promotion activities, the mall will charge according to the venue and date; for IPs, debut exhibitions or external institutions that the mall hopes to introduce, the venue rent may be reduced, and methods such as sales sharing, resource replacement or joint marketing will be adopted.

A longer-term consideration is whether the brands that temporarily enter the atrium can pass the market test and finally become long-term tenants. According to consumer research, CapitaMall·Taiyanggong learned that outdoor brands are very popular among target consumers, so the mall continues to introduce relevant pop-up activities in the atrium, hoping to attract popular outdoor brands in the market to settle in for a long time.

However, the aforementioned industry insider told the Economic Observer that the cost of an outdoor-themed pop-up may reach millions of yuan, and many brands are still relatively cautious about short-term investment. For malls, it is a more ideal result to let the temporary brands in the atrium finally become long-term tenants, but this also depends on the brand's willingness to invest and the actual sales during the activity period.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Economic Observer", written by Luo Wenli, and published with authorization from 36Kr.