BRAND POSITIONING OF SHOPPING CENTRES IN SINGAPORE - A MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING APPROACH

Abstract

Many researches have focused on factors affecting performance of shopping malls and how retail images affect shoppers' perceptions of shopping centres. However, little research has been done to investigate how these attributes will affect the dimensions of brand positioning of shopping centres in Singapore. By using Multidimensional Scaling Model to create perceptual maps, pictorial positions of ten shopping centres can be presented spatially in map, according to shoppers' perceptions. The results indicate that a two-dimensional perceptual map is appropriate for this study. Factor analysis is adopted to find the two significant major factors that best described the two dimensions, namely "Centre-feature Oriented" and "Product-Related". After determinations of dimensions, a two-dimensional map is created using Multidimensional Scaling Model. The perceptual maps show the relative positioning of the ten shopping centres and four competitive sets of clusters are identified. Shopping malls in the city centre and fringe centre are perceived to be positive in "product-related", whereas suburban shopping centres such as Tampines Mall, Causeway Point and Jurong Point are perceived to be poorer in "product-related" factors but perceived to be neutral in "centrefeature oriented" dimension. City centre malls such as Ngee Ann City, Suntec City, Wisma Atria and Marina Square are well perceived in "centre-feature oriented" but Heeren, Centre Point and Far East Square are perceived to be negative in this dimension. Retail managers have to apply different marketing strategies and plans according to the different segments in order to gain competitive advantage and to identify new opportunities and threats.