Too many Shopping Malls?

[afternoon1440]

52 minutes ago, Brewster67 said:

The original Mall on a Saturday used to be terrible and you would drive around for ages trying to spot a space, I haven't been there in a while but from what the wife tells me, you can do doughnuts in there :)

I'm not sure what time  your wife went to The Mall but it is still a complete nightmare every weekend. There is a nice beer garden at the back which gets going at about 6pm, the parking is ok by then.

Korat is growing fast and I think they have done this building while land and labor are relatively cheap.

The Motorway will be finished next year which will make Korat a lot more accessible from Bangkok for families returning home, and educational choices are being improved with the new international School under construction.

 

 

[newnative]

13 hours ago, observer90210 said:

True what you say for western countries....but e-commerce in Thailand will take quite some time to get trust, as the postal service or the customs efficiency, honesty and integrity,  is not the same as in western nations.

 

A part from this, many malls aim to entertain the spending power of the local hi-so's or the "quality" expats/tourists. Consequently, these groups do not find it necessary to target e-commerce as the hi-so, part time resident Expat/tourist will obviously not make his purchases online.

     You can add poor website search functions.  I did quite a bit of on-line shopping in America.  Here?  Almost none.  Most of the Thai retailers, even some of the largest, have poor search engines on their sites.  Often you only get a fraction of what is available in the store.  Some only have a catalog to download, which is sometimes out of date.  Almost always, when I search for something, I get pages and pages of totally unrelated items.  Or, nothing found, when I know they sell what I am searching.  Sometimes when I start out in English, the website reverts to Thai when you get to product information.  IKEA's website is good; most of the rest, not so much.

[simoh1490]

10 minutes ago, peterrabbit said:

It seems to be part of the Thai psykey that they just copy what someone else has made a success of and thereby oversupply the market so nobody makes any money.

How many times do you see a soi full of the same type of shop. ie Gold shops, pharmacies, noodle stands, 7-11 type stores etc so that the local demand simply cannot support that many outlets and they all end up losing money.

You can see it again and again from noodle stands to shopping malls.

No original thinking going on, just 'copy cats'.

Owning the land is a large piece of the puzzle, the mall itself is just concrete steel and glass. In a worst-case scenario, it's not a bad way to store money, especially shady money since there will always be somebody willing to rent space at some price, plus the land value continues to increase. It may appear stupid but I'm not sure it is, especially if the mall owner is willing to wait.

[simoh1490]

1 minute ago, newnative said:

     You can add poor website search functions.  I did quite a bit of on-line shopping in America.  Here?  Almost none.  Most of the Thai retailers, even some of the largest, have poor search engines on their sites.  Often you only get a fraction of what is available in the store.  Some only have a catalog to download, which is sometimes out of date.  Almost always, when I search for something, I get pages and pages of totally unrelated items.  Or, nothing found, when I know they sell what I am searching.  Sometimes when I start out in English, the website reverts to Thai when you get to product information.  IKEA's website is good; most of the rest, not so much.

Thai retailing is at a totally different stage of development to the US, Thai retailers have online facilities because they think they should have them, the name of the game however is to get the customer into the store.

[SantiSuk]

Typical pooh-poohing of Isaan towns from someone earlier in this thread. To restore a bit of balance would just like to note that me and my family had a very nice time in Korat on a long weekend last April (older of 2 daughters was taking exams for university there). Highlights were:

 

* swimming at The Mall. The olympic-sized pool favoured by local expat gerrys (geriatric not necessarily german) was a bit dirty though on this our second visit (smaller pools and slides were younger daughter-appropriate and clean)

* T21 mall for shopping (window and actual). I'm no mall fan but this one is worth a look for its interior design.

* the night markets - central one and the one up past Rajabhat Uni

* good selection of restaurants as per normal at these regional Isaan centres. We particularly liked the Isaan barn restaurant on Taosura 3 alley per attached pdf file

* Korat Hash House harriers (would have been had they been 'running' that weekend, have been on another occasion) - great bunch for a laugh, beers and a jog or walk in the countryside

* Zoo and lesiure centre there would probably have been nice, had we had time to get out there in between dropping and collecting daughter 1

 

OK nothing to excite the passions of a red-blooded single TV member there. This is from the perspective of a typical farang-Thai family away weekend. Korat hasn't set my pulses racing on night life when I've visited sans-famille (maybe cos I don't know it well enough) and I prefer my local regional center, Ubon Ratchathani, from that and a scenic perspective - Ubon has interesting wats and a great Thai river flowing through it.

 

Korat's well worth a family weekend away IMO. Similarly I've enjoyed the same in Khon Kaen.

thai restaurant in Korat.pdf

[simoh1490]

1 minute ago, SantiSuk said:

Typical pooh-poohing of Isaan towns from someone earlier in this thread. To restore a bit of balance would just like to note that me and my family had a very nice time in Korat on a long weekend last April (older of 2 daughters was taking exams for university there). Highlights were:

 

* swimming at The Mall. The olympic-sized pool favoured by local expat gerrys (geriatric not necessarily german) was a bit dirty though on this our second visit (smaller pools and slides were younger daughter-appropriate and clean)

* T21 mall for shopping (window and actual). I'm no mall fan but this one is worth a look for its interior design.

* the night markets - central one and the one up past Rajabhat Uni

* good selection of restaurants as per normal at these regional Isaan centres. We particularly liked the Isaan barn restaurant on Taosura 3 alley per attached pdf file

* Korat Hash House harriers (would have been had they been 'running' that weekend, have been on another occasion) - great bunch for a laugh, beers and a jog or walk in the countryside

* Zoo and lesiure centre there would probably have been nice, had we had time to get out there in between dropping and collecting daughter 1

 

OK nothing to excite the passions of a red-blooded single TV member there. This is from the perspective of a typical farang-Thai family away weekend. Korat hasn't set my pulses racing on night life when I've visited sans-famille (maybe cos I don't know it well enough) and I prefer my local regional center, Ubon Ratchathani, from that and a scenic perspective - Ubon has interesting wats and a great Thai river flowing through it.

 

Korat's well worth a family weekend away IMO. Similarly I've enjoyed the same in Khon Kaen.

thai restaurant in Korat.pdf

No, it wasn't pooh-poohing at all, it was a statement, in context, about what one particular town is not - as much as I happen to enjoy Korat also I am bound to admit that it is not tourist or expat central.

[SantiSuk]

Online is getting better. Check out Organic Pavillion if you want to see one that works well and satisfies a niche demand that is not well met outside Bangkok in the bricks & mortar sphere. Similarly, ThaiV sponsor Swimming Pools Thailand.

 

Disagree entirely about the comment on delivery, but just based on my personal experience. I find deliveries from on-liners quick and efficient by Kerry and Thai Post even to my sticks-like abode. Maybe it's cos I use online for niche products. You tend to avoid the rank amateurs who think they can sell a few clothes.

[geisha]

Malls are here to stay. Clean, air con , nice toilets. Usually near public transport. What I have noticed , is that food outlets, ice cream shops, food courts, coffee shops, cheap and expensive restaurants are crowding out all other buisnesses. 

[mike324]

Big malls such as Central and T21 don't do well if the local population doesn't have the spending power and correct traffic. 

 

I think Central made a miscalculation with some of the malls, thinking the area is developing and people will flock to the mall, even they have admitted themselves in the public regarding to malls not meeting their expectations. I think T21 formula doens't work in Korat because its mostly catered to tourists. The one in bangkok and pattaya is successful because of tourists. It is also about the location, the T21 in bangkok is surrounded by businesses and schools, so you see a lot of workers and students there during lunch and afternoons.

 

Another one of Centrals Mall that is doing poorly is Central Salaya, it is pretty empty during the day and even on the ground floor, there are many empty spaces. I would say traffic is steadily increasing but not as fast as they expected at first. Given that the population in the area isn't so big, but there is spending power here, which Central thought would be enough. This is one of the main reasons why The Mall group decided to hold off on construction of a new mall in the Salaya area too.

[SantiSuk]

Central in Ubon was an apparent disaster in its first year but I reckon now a big success. As mostly said here already in one way or another, its due to:

 

• easy out-of-town (slightly) access
• easy parking
• a good cheap phone-up taxi system in town and good supplies of same waiting at the mall
• conversion of the ground floor to cheap goods market-style
• frequent pretties and minor celeb presentations at weekends
• one of the three floors entirely devoted to food with many restaurant-styles you can't get in town
• arrival of discount Korean stores and similar
• glitzy glamour brands now de-emphasised. Those remaining still very under-populated
• banks and cosmetic alteration businesses providing a base rent in addition to restaurant chains
• burgeoning wealth in this part of traditionally poor Isaan - translates to money to spend on food and cheap items but not yet for high ticket items

Credit to management for matching the offer to needs. Can't stand the place myself by the way, but it does have TOPS and a couple of restaurants I like!

[PerkinsCuthbert]

14 hours ago, simoh1490 said:

About five years ago, three new malls were built and opened in Chiang Mai, those in addition to two existing ones. When they opened they were all empty, today they are all mostly booming and three further malls have been constructed, one of which went through the same cycle very quickly. Two out of the three malls now house international brands predominantly, Marks and Spencer, Top Shop, Jaspal, Uniglo, the list grows longer every year. It takes a couple of years before new malls here are populated with stores and customers and the mall owners can afford to wait, build it and they will come is very true in Thailand when it comes to shopping malls.

I think this is true as far as it goes, but in my opinion there are other factors at play as well, for example the maturity of the local market, the level of penetration of online sales and the expansion or contraction of the world economy. How sustainable the present circumstances are is an open question. The Thai economy is still at a relatively early stage of economic maturity, with a significant proportion of the population still tied to basic agriculture. Spending power is still limited, though that fact can easily be masked by debt in the short term. We live in unprecedentedly prosperous times, but for how long?

 

[elgenon]

17 hours ago, plachon said:

I think the "supply and demand" is far more closely related to sources of credit, than anything to do with genuine customer demand. For the past few years, SE Asia in general has been riding on the coat tails of China's remarkable credit-led boom, and vast amounts of cheap loans have been offered to the elites to build infrastructure, such as the shopping malls, on the slimmest of feasibility studies and sense of economic reality. It is becoming a re-run of the pre-1997 Asian crash years, but this time it will be far more global in nature, as it will bring in many Western nations, especially the USA, when this whole bubble bursts and a smidgeon of economic reality reasserts itself again. Thailand, especially, has learned nothing from the 1997 experience, and history is preparing to repeat itself again. Whether the crash will come this year or next, is the main question? 

I hope you can answer my question. Yes, there is a lot of debt in China but they also hold very large reserves, so it seems to me that the government could use some of the reserves to resolve the internal debt problem. Is this correct?

[elgenon]

Supply and demand seems not to be the thinking. Also when Thais buy a property I don't think they pencil out the cash flow vs expenses the way a Westerner would do. I think they feel eventually they will make a profit when sell.

Different way of thinking.

[watcharacters]

16 hours ago, observer90210 said:

The more malls, the more competition on prices, and fewer crowds

 

 

 

Price competition seems rare in Thailand.

[SantiSuk]

And the Chinese by repute think "good, that asset's now in my family for future generations as well as me". Dunno if that's true or just a good line. 

[sawadee1947]

who the hell cares about it. If the malls can make money...why not. If they lose money I suppose YOU don't need to pay them out, isn't it?

[watcharacters]

2 hours ago, newnative said:

     You can add poor website search functions.  I did quite a bit of on-line shopping in America.  Here?  Almost none.  Most of the Thai retailers, even some of the largest, have poor search engines on their sites.  Often you only get a fraction of what is available in the store.  Some only have a catalog to download, which is sometimes out of date.  Almost always, when I search for something, I get pages and pages of totally unrelated items.  Or, nothing found, when I know they sell what I am searching.  Sometimes when I start out in English, the website reverts to Thai when you get to product information.  IKEA's website is good; most of the rest, not so much.

 

 

 

I don't get that either.   Tops has home delivery with only  a tiny fraction of their stock available.     How can that make sense to any retailer?

 

And search functions?    Forget it..

[Cranky]

Two words.  Money.  Laundering.

[realenglish1]

19 hours ago, simoh1490 said:

The likes of Central Festival and its peer group aren't interested in your cakes and snacks, nor are they interested in more noodle stalls! What they are interested in is an array of international brands, top-tier local brands, survival of the fittest will determine which malls survive and which will become enhanced noodle and confectionary outlets.

Thais do not understand feasibility studies Its too complicated

[simoh1490]

Sorry but that's nonsense, there are many hugely successful large multinational businesses in Thailand and many massively successful individuals, they didn't get that way by planning the futre on the back of a fag packet! Of course they do feasibility studies, of course they do cost-benefit analysis, it's just that this is Thailand and because you don't understand it you think it's OK to make disparaging remarks to cover up your lack of knowledge of the country.

[Enoon]

 

The Mall Multiplicity is the "One Product" roadside stall mentality (that can be observed on main roads as they leave/enter settlements) writ large.

 

With a lot more zeros added to the (copied) "investment strategy".

 

There are not enough people, in the consumer pool, with enough money to ensure that such duplicated operations (at either end of the scale) have long term viability.

 

 

 

[simoh1490]

3 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

The Mall Multiplicity is the "One Make" roadside stall mentality (that can be observed on main roads as they leave/enter settlements) writ large.

 

With a lot more zeros added to the (copied) "investment strategy".

 

Not enough people have enough money to ensure that operations at either end of the scale have long term viability.

 

 

 

Despite there being so many extremely wealthy people in Thailand now, billionaires who are buying up businesses in other countries, including in the UK, are you really sure that true?

[Enoon]

17 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

Despite there being so many extremely wealthy people in Thailand now, billionaires who are buying up businesses in other countries, including in the UK, are you really sure that true?

 

One Swallow, or even several, does not make a Summer.

 

Bluntly: There is not enough money spread around.

 

 

[simoh1490]

6 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

One Swallow, or even several, does not make a Summer.

 

Bluntly: There is not enough money spread around.

 

 

How about 20 swallows! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thais_by_net_worth

[thrilled]

Myself I enjoy Central Plaza,Terminal 21 and the Mall.It’s good to get out of the heat.The Mall on weekends gets so crowded the cars need to start parking outside 

on the right hand side towards the rear.

I also enjoy the 2 Krung Plaza’s.It’s A shame about IT Plaza.The last time I went there it was nearly A ghost town.

[Brewster67]

This is the Terminal 21 mall which opened around 14 months ago... they were taken around 1.30pm this afternoon..

While I get the point about long term investment for possibly dodgy money, the fact is that while the mall operators can ride out years of bad business, the retailers can not. They go bust, lose their savings, dreams and patience.. The malls are now already trying to tempt in new traders but judging by the increasing amount of empty units, they are running out of their retailer base.

 

people aren't taking the risk on an empty mall any more and at a point it comes unsustainable and even pointless keeping the mall operating.

 

[Brewster67]

Around 3 years ago, they built a medium sized retail/office complex of around 70 shops with around 140 offices above (i-Square)... Ample parking fro around 200 cars... easy access off the 205 from Khon Kaen and Korat bypass... They tried every marketing ploy in the book, from sponsoring the menus of many of the local restaurants to driving around the streets for weeks announcing the opening through loudspeakers to a ten day long festival with live bands, beer tents and children's rides etc etc....

 

There are probably three of the units taken up and this is just a ten minute drive from the centre of town.

 

There was another quite expensive looking build (Platinum World) literally 5 minutes drive from town centre been open now for over 4 years which is literally 20% occupied.

[MyFriend You]

21 hours ago, simoh1490 said:

With all due respect to Korat and it's residents, Nakon Ratchasima is hardly the centre of the tourist universe in Thailand, nor is it the focal point for expat living!

That may be true but they supply a good portion of the bar girls in  Pattaya, every third girl I ask is from Korat!!

[plachon]

5 hours ago, elgenon said:

I hope you can answer my question. Yes, there is a lot of debt in China but they also hold very large reserves, so it seems to me that the government could use some of the reserves to resolve the internal debt problem. Is this correct?

China's been trying to do that for years, spending and borrowing hand over fist to try and keep its booming economy going, but it looks like the freight train that has been travelling at 200km/hr for the last few years is about to hit the buffers big time, and bring a bunch of other dependent countries crashing down with it, from USA to Muang Thai. What you have to bear in mind, that it has been shoring up billions of dollars in unproductive loans into all sorts of disastrous investments, in both the public and private sector for years (Google the 'ghost cities of China', for one prime example) or just check out this report:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170223-chinas-zombie-factories-and-unborn-cities

 

Then there is the problem of a massive shadow economy and that the Chinese state's books have been cooked by the govt/party for years on end, so it's not a case of WYSIWYG when you read the stats (ditto Thailand and most SE Asian nations). The debt bubble on a global level and its patent unsustainability cannot be denied (despite the hubristic nature of people like Simoh1490, who prefer to pretend everything's just fine and dandy), but if you have your doubts, it is worth reminding yourself that global debt is now growing 3 X faster than wealth, and it is mostly only the uber-elite that are creaming it in these days and can afford to build "throwaway malls" for their daughters and for a spot of money laundering:

https://schiffgold.com/key-gold-news/global-debt-growing-three-times-faster-global-wealth/

 

But this is just MHO, and one should seek out a variety of sources and opinions, before coming to any conclusion about where this debt bubble is heading. 

[SantiSuk]

2 hours ago, Brewster67 said:

This is the Terminal 21 mall which opened around 14 months ago... they were taken around 1.30pm this afternoon..

While I get the point about long term investment for possibly dodgy money, the fact is that while the mall operators can ride out years of bad business, the retailers can not. They go bust, lose their savings, dreams and patience.. The malls are now already trying to tempt in new traders but judging by the increasing amount of empty units, they are running out of their retailer base.

 

people aren't taking the risk on an empty mall any more and at a point it comes unsustainable and even pointless keeping the mall operating.

 

Rats - I must go back there to keep Winston Churchill company!

 

Many more people in T21 in April-17 (weekday too as I recall)