Causeway point is located in the heart of Woodlands Regional Center. It is the largest mall managed under the Frasers Centerpoint Malls group and it contains more than 250 shops with its 6 level retail complex that compromise supermarkets, food court, Cineplex, dinning and leisure activities.
The mall can be clearly seen once stepped out of the MRT station and bus interchange. It is one of the largest suburban malls in Singapore with several anchor and mini-anchor tenants such as Cathay Cineplex, Cold Storage, Courts, Horizon Food Mall, John Little, Kiddy Palace, Metro, Popular Bookstore and Timezone. The logo of the anchor tenants are shown at the side of the mall facing the MRT.
Mall site analysis
Causeway point shopping mall is identified by the key areas compared to competitors, as well as meeting the desire of the target customers. As it was located among the heart of a residential center, it was clearly targeting the neighboring residents who are going to purchase their needs and wants within places that they are comfortable travelling within.
Therefore, Causeway point have a good site location where it captures the targeted market as it was planned to. The well selection of stores in the mall are also one factors that attracts customers to come back frequently to visit the mall and preferable stores.
Target market & analysis
Causeway point was segmented to meet the market’s heterogeneous needs and clustering into smaller segments of homogenous needs. They have carefully selected its segment and have served it capability in efficiency and effectiveness.
For instance, Cold-storage; they are an anchor tenant in the mall and have attract the west side area residents to come by Causeway point to visit the hypermarket to buy their needs.
Location wise: Causeway point is located at the central of Woodlands and it was a one stop shopping mall for areas like Sembawang, Marsiling; these neighborhoods area. Not only so, because it has a MRT station near the mall, and bus interchange that most people will take bus to and fro, the location of Causeway point stands out more as compared to the other malls around the North area. Therefore, it can be considered an ideal location to have a mall set up there. Consumers can also be from all around Singapore due to the easy accessibility infrastructure Singapore has.
Trading Area Analysis: As Causeway point was located near to the neighboring area,the trading area at which Causeway point draws its customers is qualified to be economical and profitable. Their anchor tenants such as Cold storage, John little, metro etc are just catered to those neighboring resident’s needs.
Some benefits: Causeway point has was that their customer profiles are established, and when there are even such as 'WOW MUM' Event organized by the mall management, so that it will allows publicity through games and also increase the visitation of the consumers in future upon winning prizes like vouchers or coupons. On celebrating Mothers’ Day, this promotional activity helps to promote the mall itself too.
Size and shape: Primary areas of Causeway Point will be areas like woodlands, Marsiling, Sembawang. This is where the density of customers will be drawn to Causeway point to get their daily necessities and wants.
Secondary areas will be like the Choa Chu Kang residential areas along the Bukit Panjang LRT line. This is because there are not many one stop shopping mall, or rather AFSC(All-under-one-roof Shopping Centre) is located at these secondary places.
Fringe areas will be like all widely spread from all around Singapore. East residential customers would be classified under fringe because it will take quite a long time and journey to get to Causeway point.
Causeway point has a total of 39,000 square metres (425,000 square feet) gross leasable area. This amount of area taken up would be preferably considered that the characteristics of trading area, which the “knockout” factors would be built on the population size. The estimated population in woodlands was 192,700. This is in which, the number of household income, income distribution, education levels and all demographics would be quite high and meet the targeted group of consumers in Causeway point.
The nature of competition and level of saturation for causeway point is that, there are a few big malls that are just a distant away. Some examples are: Northpoint which is located around Yishun area; and IMM which is located around Jurong East area. This could explain the human flow of Causeway point when they are big and have a variety of stores to attracts them.
‘WOW MUM’ Event
As a group, we attended the ‘WOW MUM’ event held by the Frasers Centerpoint. Where we are a team of event crew, stationed around one pit stop.
This is where the family members will have to be there together to collect the task. There are two tasks that they need to complete.
Task #1: There are 4 envelopes, each labeled from A to D. One of the family members have to chose one of it and inside the envelope, they are given only a small picture. They are to track down where is the picture taken from and have at least 3 or more family members to be inside the picture of the chosen answer.
Upon finishing the task, the whole family will have to gather together at the pit stop again to get the chop and signature of the event crew. So, they can move on to Task #2.
Task #2: There are also 4 envelopes, each labeled from A to D. They are to chose one of the 4 envelopes and complete the task which says, to purchase an item from the designated store. Upon presenting the receipt and the task form to get the chop and signature, they are considered completed in their task at this pit stop at Causeway point.
Evaluate
The whole event was well-organized and the mall management is able to let some stores to be part of the games. For instance, the Task #2, where the participants have to purchase something within the store to act as a Mother’s Day present, which is a great idea to have communication between stores and customers. There is also precaution which the management has thought of to protect the participants like Dettol wipes and First Aid Kit.
Task #2: There are also 4 envelopes, each labeled from A to D. They are to chose one of the 4 envelopes and complete the task which says, to purchase an item from the designated store. Upon presenting the receipt and the task form to get the chop and signature, they are considered completed in their task at this pit stop at Causeway point.
Evaluate
The whole event was well-organized and the mall management is able to let some stores to be part of the games. For instance, the Task #2, where the participants have to purchase something within the store to act as a Mother’s Day present, which is a great idea to have communication between stores and customers. There is also precaution which the management has thought of to protect the participants like Dettol wipes and First Aid Kit.
Also there are incidents where some mums just got frustrated over the answers that they could not find. So as to keep the game fair, we are not allowed to give hint until a certain limit of timing.
Reflection
It could be better done if we are told in the first place of what exactly is happening. The publicity of the event set up by the mall management can be greater too, so in order to let more teams participate and join in the fun. To bring out the lively atmosphere, they can invite some well-known celebrities’ mums to take part in it too. This can be taking into considerations if they ever will organize this event as per annually or just a one time event.
From here, I can see that the mall management is trying to connect the public to the mall itself, letting the public knowing that, a shopping mall is definitely more than just a shopping place. Therefore, in overall, it was really a great event on that day and was hoping to be able to join in more of this event organized by the mall management.
References from the net about statisitics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlands,_ Singapore
