Great Expectations

It’s 10 am on a Tuesday morning and Grand Bazaar looks like a ghost town. Only a few cars can be seen, mostly those owned by the shop owners. By lunch time the mall is slowly beginning to come alive, but the stores situated at the back of the mall remain lifeless. Grand Bazaar is not alone. Local mall merchants throughout the country have been suffering from poor sales and increasing expenses for the last couple of years. As a result, some veterans in the mall trade are seriously thinking about packing up shop, cashing their cheques and moving on. Pizazz is a well-known women’s clothing store with branches in Grand Bazaar, Valpark Shopping Plaza and Gulf City Mall. The chain store also owns Mirage in Grand Bazaar. But with declining sales over the last two years, the stores manager and owner, who requested anonymity, said they may be closing down some of their branches soon.

The manager said the rent has been increasing every year for the last few years. Currently, they pay $35,000 per month in rent for the Grand Bazaar Mirage store; $22,000 each for Gulf City and Grand Bazaar, Pizazz stores — and $4,000 for Valpark. The rent was calculated per square foot, initially. “We were told that electricity and water rates have been going up and also maintenance for the mall. This is why rent has increased,” said the manager. Such increased rates have been putting most of the stores out of business, said the manager. As a result, “We have had to increase our prices,” he said, adding, “people know they can go to Chaguanas and Port-of-Spain and bargain on the streets to get a better price for the same item, so we are losing out big time.” The reality for most mall businessmen is that even if prices were lower, people may still not come to the mall. Crime, he said, may be scaring them off.

Since the recent robbery at Pennywise, they have a seen drastic reduction in sales. Pizazz in Gulf City has not been turning a profit for its owners either, said the manager. The manager said people coming to that mall are not looking for the type of clothing they sell and the store is faced with a huge debt. Tenants of Long Circular Mall, like those in Gulf City, have been singing the same depressing tune for some time. At about three in the afternoon, the mall had a small crowd of people, mainly in the food court. Most of the stores were empty, with employees standing around with their hands behind their backs. The manager of All That Jazz, a well-known clothing store, said sales have been virtually non-existent for the last two years. The store sells both male and female semi-formal and work attire. The manager puts the slump in sales  squarely on the shoulders of the management of the mall.

Long Circular Mall is part of the Premier Malls, which are owned and operated by Home Construction Ltd (HCL). The other malls include Atlantic Plaza in the Point Lisas Industrial Estate, Valpark Shopping Plaza, Valsayn and Trincity Mall, Trincity. According to the manager of All That Jazz, tenants have been complaining about the high rent and the inefficiency of management in maintaining the mall. “Lately rent seems to be going up every six months. We have a problem getting the management to help out when we have problems in the store,” said the manager. She said they felt like the management does not care about the tenants’ problems. She added that right now, there is a problem with water coming through the roof of the store. “We constantly alert them when it is happening so they can come down and take a look at it. They come look around, but that’s the end of it,” said the manager.

Management says that the owners are the ones responsible for maintaining the stores and are only liable for things outside. The music store currently pays about $35,000 in rent per month. Similarly, the manager of Mirage, said the store has not made a profit over the last two years.
“I don’t know if it is that people have stopped coming to the mall. Two years ago it was so different. You had a constant flow of traffic through the mall. Things were going good for us. But now it is just dead,” she said. She took the view that the mall is not advertised as it should be and cited  Independence Day, when the mall was open but was virtually empty as one such example. “No one knew we were open. Isn’t it the management’s responsibility to advertise that the mall would be open?” she added. She was insistent that the store did its own advertising, but this was not enough to draw people to the mall. “We do our own advertising, but that’s not enough to attract people into the mall,” she said, and insisted that management needed to have some type of strategy to attract people.

At Urban Outfitters in West Mall, they have been doing better because the rent there is cheaper. Still, they complain that the constant increase in rent has caused a lot of businesses to pull out all together. Lipstick and Whipcream folded as a result, said Urban Outfitters’ manager. Not all store owners are done in by the rent. Manager and owner of Sole to Sole, a women’s shoe shop, Lenford Harry, recently opened a second branch at Long Circular; he has another in Excellent City Centre. In the hopes of expanding his business and clientele, he opted for Long Circular because of its reputation and location. Harry said operating in a mall is very different from running a business in Port-of-Spain. “You have to expect things to be slower.” Having decided to stick it out, he said his main grievance, like most of the tenants, is the high rent. “This high rent is a deterrent for businesses wanting to come into the mall. You need to have sound financial backing to take a leap like this,” said Harry. He was optimistic about his own position, saying he never expected to turn a profit right off the bat. “People feel when you open a business, you are supposed to be making money right away. It never happens like that, you always have to face difficulties and obstacles before you even make a profit,” said Harry. He said he has a problem with the high rates he pays for electricity. Increases in electricity and water costs for example, have gone up.

Just last week, merchants got a memo saying the electricity costs went up and, as a result, this cost will go up as well. “My store is one of the smallest in the malls and my electricity has increased by over $500,” said Harry. Robert Reid, Marketing Manager for the Premier Malls, says that mall shopping days are far from over. He acknowledged that there is a high demand for space within the mall. He said tenants need to play a more integral role in marketing their stores — and not depend on the mall management to do it for them. “We have such a long waiting list for tenants. Right now we are looking at expanding the number of stores and kiosks to accommodate them,” said Reid. Currently the mall has 112 stores. New kiosks are set to come on stream soon. Tenants turnover has been high, acknowledged Reid, noting that this is because they expanded their operations.
Rent, he stressed, is dependant on the tenant’s lease agreement. “It is a standard lease, but a businessman has rights. You, along with your lawyer can contest certain clauses and safeguard certain provisions. We can come to a mutual agreement,” said Reid. Tenants’ rent never goes up at the same time, he added, noting that it goes up by their lease times.

According to Reid, the malls in the group have been doing very well. He said he cannot understand why tenants are complaining about low traffic, since Long Circular is one of the most frequented mall with about 50,000 patrons per week. Trincity Mall has an even higher traffic number. “We get about 60,000 people coming through the mall on a normal week because of the area. We can get up to 100,000 people a week sometimes,” he said.
Valpark gets about 20,000 people a week because of its location and the fact that it is a small plaza. At Grand Bazaar, they recently hired a new manager for the mall, Harry Singh. Singh is of the view that putting one’s business in a mall will always be profitable. Grand Bazaar, he said, has a low tenant turnover. The mall has been open about seven years. Management tries to maintain good relations with all the tenants, he said. He felt that the businesses there have all been doing well. Anyone living in South Trinidad, knows that Gulf City Mall holds the monopoly in mall shopping.
The place is always overrun with shoppers walking briskly up and down the mall area and patronising their favourite stores. At three in the afternoon, the parking lot is packed to capacity and you cannot find a place to sit in the food court. Most stores have a constant flow of customers.

Owner of Designer Look a well known women’s clothing store, Korine Ramyard has been in business in the mall for over 19 years. She makes all the clothing in her store making it easy for women. She said the only way to survive within the mall environment is to have a good relationship with the mall management as well as your customers. She said as business owner she had no complaints about the management or the way the mall has been maintained. Ramyard said even though many people have been complaining about the number of teenagers liming in the mall, she looks at them as potential clients. Owner of Studio XTC, one of the most successful Kiosks in the mall, Rajesh Chaita has been in business for over seven years. He started off with one kiosk and has since expanded to seven. The Kiosks are well known by Southerners for having the most unusual items from all over the world including jewelry, handbags, ornaments and candles.

Like Ramyard, he is happy operating in Gulf City. He plans to expand his business very soon to Movietowne to capture the North market. However, he felt that consumer spending has been waning in recent times and this may affect his business. “Over the past three years we have seen a reduction in consumer spending,” said Chaita adding that people have become very cautious about what they buy. He said his relationship with management has been great. “The management has placed a certain amount of confidence in me and this has allowed my business to grow. If the relationship was not good, I might have stayed with only one place,” said Chaita. He pays about $4,600 a month for one Kiosk. With High Street just five minutes away, tenants know they have to compete for customers within San Fernando. Patrons of the Gulf City mall say there is no real competition. Customers also say they prefer to shop at the mall because they know the quality of what they are buying and it is more convenient. “Walking up High Street is not a good experience for a shopper, unless you work there,” said one patron.