Love This!

Since Pavilion, The Gardens and last but not least, Sunway 2 (who’s excited about Sunway 2?) are opening in this short space of time, they must be fighting for the contractors and staffs to ensure the visual merchandize and products are ready before opening.

Good quality work for retail renovations are limited when time and cost are thrown into the equation. For the brands that are opening in more than 1 shopping mall, they have to secure enough manpower or there would be shop and area managers complaining, “Why is that outlet’s deco more stylish than mine?!”

There are probably some brands that grumbled that, “The renovation wasn’t good enough, look at that!” *pointing to misalignment somewhere in between* “No no, I cannot accept such shody work” to “This isn’t what I ordered. Change!” Cost is one matter. But there’s just NOT enough TIME!

So contractors and staffs think innovatively, cover them with superficial things like arranging the rug over the scratched tile while waiting for the ordered new tile to arrive and replaced. Another way is to divert the attention to other things like a neon piece of bikini/brief on the mannequin or sexy model in the life sized poster on the wall. So there are some stores that are not fully done but have to open because of agreement.

If a shop is not opened per day, or even late 1/2 hr before opening time, it can be penalized by the mall’s management. Besides not getting money from customers, the companies have to pay for the fine to the mall’s management.

In opening a new outlet, these must be done:

• ensure the permit and documentation are available – no permit, no open.
• the shell – walls, ceilings, flooring must be done and cleaned. Posters are cut and glued.
• core furniture pieces are then added.
• merchandizes are taken out of the carton boxes, unwrapped, priced, tagged with sensors, arranged on the rack, cupboards, tables, etc according to Visual Merchandize.
• decorative and extra pieces are added like flowers, calendar
• signages, decals are placed in appropriate locations – usually at eye level or nearest to that product.
• if it’s clothes, the hanged clothes MUST be ironed.
• dressing the mannequin with the most special products to capture attention. The window display is one of the reasons companies hire Visual Merchandizer – to entice the casual shoppers to come in (and hopefully buy).
• insert receipt papers into the cash machine, ensure enough papers for fax and notes taking (for new staffs especially), test credit card machines, phones, computer setup, network is connected, etc.
• reclean the area and tidying it up.

For department store, promoters must apply for price tags from the department store and this takes from a day to weeks to generate since there are so many brands opening in a department store. Metrojaya is known to take at least 3 days. Isetan Lot 10 is quite fast – within a day or 2 (weekday) but that’s because Isetan Lot 10 doesn’t have that many products. Or maybe Isetan has faster machines, better people. Shhh..

Bear in mind that there are internal brands and external brands in a department store. Internal brands are brands that belong to the department store like Ti-Zed, Chic Avenue, Arcadia, Agenda and Orange Sorbet belong to Jusco/AEON. External brands are brands that belong to individual or other groups that rent space inside the department store like Voir, Padini, G2000, Timberland, Triumph, Soda, etc. Would they battle for plastic clips to slide signages, discount signs, sensors and decals?

Oh, by the way, I heard Sunway 2 is opened! Already?! There’s no news about it? Nothing in http://www.sunwaypyramid.com. I guess people are just concentrating on Pavilion and The Gardens..