ION Orchard is trying to engage its customers with more activities

SINGAPORE — Arobatic acts performed metres up in the air. An installation made of balloons. A gymnastics quartet doing stunts. No, these are not part of some circus event. They are the latest in a string of activities held at ION Orchard that are meant to enhance the shopping experience beyond just having a good selection of retail outlets.

“Retail has to be fun. There must be an element of fun,” said Chris Chong, the mall’s chief executive officer. “Will this generate sales directly? No. But it certainly buys the brownie points. It creates the emotional link that is very hard to take away. For the first time in Orchard Road, we will be having an Italian ballet aerialist perform outside to engage shoppers. It is an acrobatic recital where the gymnast performs an aerobatic routine of spirals and spins to music while being suspended beneath a rising helium balloon to create the illusion of flying. We have previously had unique promotions where we have sent winners to the Grammy Awards and Paris Fashion Week. You can’t buy these tickets.”

The iconic shopping centre has been successful thus far in its quest to stay relevant since opening its doors up for business in 2009, garnering an impressive 47 retail awards along the way. “Being relevant is the key,” said Chong. “Concepts come and go, so you always need to refresh and change. The way we look at the whole business is that we are building a community; and a community is like a microcosm of a society where certain brands will age. Consumers also age, so when new brands come along, we give them a place. It’s more of an art than science.”

The entertainment and arts elements are also important, he said, to bring about a unique shopping experience. “One of our key focus points is bring a multi-sensory experience, so we have done several activities with that in mind, such as a Butterfly Dome and Singapore’s first outdoor fashion concert with celebrities such as Carrie Underwood and Vaness Wu. Unique experiences promote memorable times. I think when people feel happy they will shop more,” Chong elaborated. “Art is also important. A lot of the luxury brands are often patrons of their own art foundations and if you look at the whole ecosystem, when you appreciate art, you appreciate the good things in life. When you appreciate beauty, you are in the right frame of mind to see things differently. The marriage between retail and art is important and it will continue in that respect.”

Is that the future of retail? According to Chong, it is all about having the right merchandise and the right concepts. “People go online but they will still come down to the store to check things out. When we look at the absolute numbers, brick and mortar (stores) are still the mainstay and contribution to revenue, compared to online sales. In fact, e-commerce giants like China’s Alibaba are now trying to get into the brick and mortar business.”

Chong said that the future of retail need not be an Us vs Them approach. “I see the future of retail as being a complimentary balance of retailers having both physical stores and an online presence, so we have worked closely with our retail tenants to ensure they offer merchandise and range skewed towards our affluent shoppers and tourists.”

He added that ION Orchard also made its online presence felt through social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Weibo, which are used “to connect with the new generation of shoppers so they grow up with us, creating a community of followers who will follow us through”.

“In less than two years, our loyalty programme has seen growth to more than 60,000 members. Members have shared that they enjoyed the exclusive deals on our app, so you can say that we are leveraging on e-commerce with an online-to-offline focus,” he added. “Also, we respond to data shared by our partners such as the Singapore Tourism Board, China Union Pay and Global Blue. These insights really help model and change what you see at the end of the day.”

Chong said that the festivities that are happening at the shopping mall — starting this weekend, and continuing every weekend in March — are not only meant to mark the end of the revamp process, which started last May, but also to “celebrate our increase of shopper traffic”. “We had more than 55 million shoppers last year, compared to 52 million the year before. It is also a 10 per cent increase from the year before, with sales generated in tandem based on shopper’s receipts. All that happened when a third of our stores were renovating. That is a very strong testimony that it’s quite resilient actually.

“The crowd does spend; people do buy. So our celebrations this March are also our way of thanking our retailers for being so patient with us,” he said.