K11 Art Mall excels in the challenging retail market with nearly 100% occupancy
Although the local retail outlook remains lacklustre, over the past year Hong Kong K11 Art Mall has undergone a bold transformation to achieve nearly full occupancy by bringing in more than 65 new merchants and limited pop-up stores, representing over 30% of the total tenant mix. As of the second quarter, K11 Art Mall recorded an increase of more than 30% in monthly sales and footfall on average, staging a recovery from the fifth wave of the pandemic compared with January. The fourth quarter is expected to show double-digit growth in overall sales and footfall, compared with the same period last year.
Upgrading tenant mix during the pandemic
In recent years, “Generation Z” (Gen Z) consumers have shown increasing interest in the urban outdoor style, local brands with personality and Instagram (IG) influencers’ stores. Riding on the Gen Z trends, K11 Art Mall has introduced multiple popular brands with personality and in vogue online stores to generate a constant stream of footfall and better facilitate business development, while at the same time stunning the customers with a new shopping experience:
- To set the tone of the high-traffic ground floor to “Urban Active”, K11 Art Mall has introduced nine new stores of popular urban outdoor brands in a row, including The North Face‘s largest concept store in Asia, trendy boutique Kapok, and local functional apparel brand ARCHIVAL REINVENT.
- K11 Art Mall has brought in boutique brands on the streets, such as Midwest Vintage, the master brand of vintage clothing shop in Hong Kong, and Karma Tattoo & Piercing, a professional tattoo and piercing shop, to further diversify the tenant mix with local boutiques and stores with distinct characters.
- Trending IG dessert shops, including the infused mochi cake shop The Mochiffon Cake, the Russian-owned cake shop ROMANOVA, and celebrity-ran Café Life by the famous Japanese bakery chef and the actress Katy Kung Ka Yan, debut their brick-and-mortar presence on the first and second floors of the basement. Driven by these new popular IG dessert shops, the overall sales of K11 Art Mall‘s dessert shops surged 40% compared with the same period last year.
- The popular Swedish furniture store, IKEA, which will be stationed in the mall from mid-August, will definitely become a must-check-in spot for fans.
Generating footfall and business through crossover collaboration
To capture the culture-loving and exhibition-hopping Gen Z, K11 Art Mall has successfully increased footfall and business through strategic partnerships across different sectors since last year:
- Riding on the cultural trends to co-create contents with partners
Last year, K11 Art Mall co-hosted the world’s very first physical meme exhibition with 9GAG, the social media platform with over 200 million fans worldwide. The exhibition was well-received with record-breaking footfall in K11 Art Mall‘s history. More than 70% of visitors were Gen Z. Also tapping into the Metaverse trend, K11 Art Mall collaborated with art technology companies across Hong Kong and Japan, and hosted an NFT Metaverse exhibition along with educational activities, introducing NFT art for public appreciation. K11 Art Mall is also dedicated to creating shared value via cross-branding collaboration such as the unprecedented limited pop-up store Blue Bottle Coffee x MaskOn.__, at which limited edition masks and recycled paper-made coffee bags were sold to raise funds for the homeless.
2. Enhancing tenants’ promotions via KLUB 11 privileges and K Dollar
This March, K11 Group upgraded the “K Dollar Program” to create synergy for over 500 designated merchants across different business categories within the New World Ecosystem, successfully boosting overall footfall. Coupled with the citywide consumption voucher scheme, K11 Art Mall launched “Multiple Rewards” in April and May, with over 90% participation rate among tenants, as a consumer spending booster that eventually empowered merchants to record a considerable double-digital growth over the same period last year. In addition, K11 Art Mall regularly evaluates and adjusts strategy for partners to enhance their business performance.
K11 Art Mall strives to co-create a unique customer-centric experience with tenants and partners. As at the second quarter this year, K11 Art Mall‘s average monthly sales and footfall increased by more than 30% compared with January, signaling a recovery from the fifth wave of the pandemic. It is expected that the overall sales and footfall in the fourth quarter this year will see a double-digit growth, compared with the same period last year. K11 Art Mall expects a more positive market sentiment in favour of the second phase of consumption vouchers in August, hence a more robust retail sector.
