Naseef Khan
Determining Retail Quality: A Case Study of Regional and Super-Regional
Shopping Centres in The Greater Toronto Area ©2014
'Retail Quality' is a very subjective concept and as such hard to quantify in real-terms for shopping centre environments. To date, few studies have attempted to find a solution of empirically ranking the retail quality of shopping centres. Using a case study data set of major shopping centres in the Toronto region, this paper presents a prototype method to rank shopping centres. The sample shopping centres are assessed in terms of both tangible and intangible attributes. Specifically, the methodology incorporates physical (tangible) attributes such as the size of the shopping centre, the total number of stores and parking spaces; along with, intangible assets, such as the dominant fashion retail brand type, the dominant lifestyle cluster and custom-definied retail experience scores. The combination of these variable allowed for analysis following a six stage method to create a standardized scoring system to evaluate and compare shopping centres. Research suggests that not all super-regional shopping centres have better retail quality in comparison to regional shopping centres. Centres with a higher proporation of luxury and high-class retailers were not always ranked highly due to the impact of other variables, such as the size of the shopping centre and the total number of parking spaces variables. Square One Shopping Centre is ranked the best in quality of retail based on the method employed in this study. The prototype method developed in this study can be used to rank shopping centres within a defined geographic region in order to develop understanding of the retail marketplace.