SHOPPING CENTRE EVALUATION

Abstract

We make appraisals of the shopping environment whenever we visit a Shopping Centre. We patronise pleasing restaurants and avoid unpleasant ones. We go to a departmental store we like and do not go to one we dislike. We make a few steps to pass through a grand entrance to a building rather than a less imposing shortcut. These are evaluative judgments and as such are not so different from what is being done in this dissertation. This dissertation attempts to design a checklist which facilitates appraisals, specify the criteria and standards to rationalise interpretation, and categorise performances of various shopping centres into different classes under a quantitative system. Such a wholistic approach is not common among many similar works concerning shopping centres and environmental evaluation. In a professional evaluation where specialists are involved, individual judgements by the specialists are essential but the laypersons should not be forgotten too. Besides, a comprehensive evaluation must be augmented by more complete and rigorous techniques. However, there is a multitude of factors and elements that are involved in the making of a successful shopping centre, which not only attract shoppers for the first visit, but also persuade people for more re-visits subsequently. The successfulness of a Shopping Centre cannot be concluded by merely examining one or two outstanding factors through perception, intuition and estimation, no matter how sophisticated and scientific the methods may be. It is commonly agreed that an Integral Approach is the right strategy to cope with the increasing complexities of shopping centre management nowadays. Therefore the evaluation of shopping centre should be made systematic, comprehensive and objective if one intends to achieve a reliable conclusion in the end of the exercise. It is hoped that such a checklist would provide the managers and practitioners with a reference for reviewing the performance of the relevant shopping centres and know their products better.