However, although the children’s business style looks beautiful, in fact, the lack of interaction among businesses, single playground setting, and parents’ neglect of the three major pain points are also behind the fiery development of children’s business, becoming a barrier to the development of shopping malls in this format. .
Pain Point 1: Insufficient Interactivity Between Formats
At present, although most shopping malls are aware of the importance of the children's consumer market, the conventional operation tactics of shopping malls are on a single floor. It simply presents the appearance of “children's play + children's retail + children's educationâ€. Although the consumer groups are the same, they often Businesses do not interact closely and operate independently. They will only be jointly marketed under the theme activities of the mall operators. Under their own governance, the lack of interaction between brands has no real effect on improving the effectiveness of shopping malls.
Solution ideas: Multi-business integration, card operations
In the field of children's business, the mall should use a multi-business integration model, that is, through the integration of different formats to open up the consumption needs of children and parents.
For example, Yau Yau Tang’s 5,000-level animation planet project built in Chongqing’s Longhu Times’ Tianzhu Street incorporates children’s play + children’s retail + parent-child restaurants + hair nails + cross-border e-commerce, etc., and integrates seemingly different formats. Behind the target is the consumer market demand. When the children complete the purchase of amusement, education, and maternity supplies, they also need to complete their parents' consumption. And because it is in the same theme park, it also achieves the maximum sharing of consumer groups among brand owners.
At the same time, the store's stored-value card system also solved the unified settlement between different formats and realized the use of one-stop for the on-site projects. The depth and flexibility of cooperation between merchants have been enhanced to facilitate customer consumption experience.
Pain point two: set a single play regardless of age
Due to the traditional single venue operation, although there are many cartoon theme images set in various children's play items, children will experience fatigue after playing in a small area for several times, plus the limited area of ​​the venue. The sense of freshness diminishes after repeated consumption; at the same time, as the age of children increases, the required amusement equipment or entertainment will also change, and “invariable†will eventually only lead to the imagination that the mall originally intended to drain through children's play.
Solution ideas: innovation and change make consumption sticky
In the large-scale development of commercial entities and the strong impact of e-commerce, "experience" is the "emphasis" of current commercial projects. This is especially true of children’s business.
On the one hand, shopping malls can create a variety of theme displays through multi-themes, and give children multiple surprises through the creation of different theme activities. On the other hand, in the experience process, different activities can be carried out to design children's activities space and content according to different age groups. And make full use of high-tech and advanced equipment and facilities, such as Star Wars, ancient tribal adventures, surfing and other scenes of immersive amusement experience, enhance consumer stickiness, and maximize the intensity of children's stay in the shopping center and repurchase times.
Pain point three: parents are seriously neglected
At present, there are too many children in the mall to focus on children only and ignore the parents who accompanied them. Parents are so tired that people turn upside down, experience is poor, and their associated desire to consume is low. At the same time, parents are reluctant to come again because of high fees, difficulties in parking, distance, poor service, too many people, and safety and health risks.
Solution: Children and Parents Fun
This line of business for children is too special because the users are children and the parents are paying the bills, so the most important thing is to focus on the growth of children and the experience of parents.
In order to do well in the children's business, we must first convince the parents that they should be recognized by the parents and let the parents feel the value of the service in order to truly acquire this consumer group. For example, from the perspective of entertainment, parents should be introduced to participate in children's entertainment, increase parental involvement, and achieve parent-child interaction. From the service perspective, shopping malls should pay attention to service details and quality, so that parents and children can enjoy music, in order to truly improve overall income and achieve sustainable development.
At present, children's business has become an important part of physical shopping malls, and is also the general direction of future business development. However, behind the increase in passenger traffic and consumer spending, there is also a “headache†for businesses. The business of children is not as simple as it seems. There is still a long way to go before it matures. Due to the misalignment of product mixes in the market, outstanding advantages in equipment activity resources, and continuous innovation in business management in the later stages, differentiated competitive advantages can be achieved.