Can we say malls make profits? Perhaps shopping plazas, what about them?
Well, they do. However, it depends on the location. This piece is particularly for those who want to start consumer businesses. I will first advise you to read my piece on the need economy. By doing that, you will have no issues flowing with this post, although I will be making reference of a lot of points I made there to establish some points here as well.
Four days ago, I went on a date with a female friend of mine. Got there about thirty minutes earlier because it was my first time meeting with her, and it is better earlier than giving excuses for coming late. It was at Chicken Republic. Got a bottle of coke, my favourite drink, and sat down. As usual, when I get to locations, malls, eateries, I look around and begin to observe what structure was put in place that make such a business established therein to succeed. It is already part of me to critically analyse strategies and structures put in place, and this has helped me become vast in my business strategy approach.
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While sipping my coke, I noticed there were so many people coming in and going out. It was on a Sunday and it’s quite understandable. Yet, I tell you within my two-hours entire stay, the number of persons that must have walked will be about two hundred persons. Both single persons and families. My amazement was that I never expected that amount of people in a town like Akure. Now this is not to speak low of places, but Akure is a city full of middle class citizens. I have always complained that businesses don’t thrive in this location but I was getting a big discovery of my life.
My friend and I crossed to the other side to get to a Plaza and do some shopping as well only to realize that it was almost filled as well. I have been going to the mall but never paid attention to this but it struck me as well that the mall is always busy as well. Now, that’s another eye opener.
Immediately, I began to wonder why in spite of the fact that I assumed businesses don’t thrive, people still visit these places. It boils down to one very key factor: The middle class hold the biggest percentage in the country.
If your business is structured around the middle class, chances are that you will scale if it is a need and like I explained in my aforementioned post that a need is want that meets three basic requirements;
- Satisfaction
- Affordability
- Urgency.
If a product doesn’t meet these three qualities, it becomes a want. Like I said earlier, this post is directed to those people who have some amount of money and want to start businesses, you can consider delving into this line if the money is tangible and if there are limited competitors in such location. However, customers will always come. I wouldn’t dispute the fact that in a country like Nigeria, service companies make more money than product companies on the larger observation, however when it comes to consumer goods, product companies still thrive because of the fact that we have the middle class.