I still felt that the personal touch is important to achieve the full shopping experience. The emotional attached during the buying process of feeling the need to touch, feel and try out items before buying that particular item. That was what I agreed too when we attended the recent business forum at Quill City Mall where they Welcomes New Tenants and Leads the Way into The Future of Retail, the “Phygital” Era.
Quill City
Mall is taking a new turn in Year 2020 with a brand new retail strategy: a
“phygital” ecosystem that is focused on maximising shoppers’ experience and
providing a platform for retailers to engage with consumers in meaningful ways.
Led by Quill
City Mall, five retail industry players explored the future of retail impacted
by the “phygital” era at an expert forum at Quill City Convention Center
recently.
“Many malls
in Malaysia is struggling to compete with the rise of online shopping and the
short-lived retail gimmicks. The team at Quill City took time to reimagine what
the future of retail entails and decided to shift our focus towards
understanding shoppers’ behavior,” said Group CEO of Quill Group of Companies,
Koong Wai Seng.
“Turns out,
the fun of shopping remains although the way we shop has changed. Quill City is
determined to meet the ever-evolving consumer expectations and their standards
for convenience, entertainment, and of course, the satisfaction of shopping,”
added Senior Vice President, Marketing, Quill City Mall, Justin Liew.
“We also need
to challenge retailers that had or hadn’t been focused on pushing their
products online to reimagine the essential role physical experience play in
building strong and memorable relationships with their customers,” said Koong.
According to
Koong, it is time we welcome the “phygital” era.
A “phygital”
mall is a combination of the physical and digital functionality, and excitement
to create the best version of a balanced retail ecosystem.
“Here at
Quill City Mall, we’re envisioning a retail model centered around exciting
digital interactions, social intimacy and a borderless O2O e-commerce platform
within a physical space – a “phygital” mall. It is about designing a shopping
platform, a journey within a physical space, with consumer-centric tech
infrastructure that facilitates the interactions between consumers and brands
throughout the shopping experience,” Koong added.
A sneak peek
into their “phygital” features include e-wallet function, borderless payment,
smart logistics and digital content marketing such as live streaming by
influencers.
Koong said
that Quill City’s “phygital” mall has a vision and purpose to become a platform
for local entrepreneurs to showcase their products and reach a wider audience.
“[The
decision to build a “phygital” mall] stems from our earnest preposition as an
industry leader to provide tools and platforms to empower SME’s and retail
entrepreneurs,” said Koong.
Quill City
also announced their new tenant lineup that each has their unique definition of
what a “phygital” concept store means to their brand and customers.
For instance,
JD.com, China’s leading one-stop e-commerce platform – has teamed up with
Presto, a local social marketing application to form an exhilarating
partnership – JDX Presto Concept Store. The store is not only cashless but it
is also staffless and borderless. That makes the largest online-to-offline
experience store in Malaysia.
Furthermore,
E-Sport Center is also settling in with a “phygital” gaming store while UniKL
introduces industry exposure projects dedicated to business students.
An expert
forum “Future Proof Your Business - New Retail Innovations and Interventions”
led by five retail guru including (Industry Expert), Kent Lee (Founder of
Smuzcity), Redza Shahid (Founder of Grubcycle) and Cheong Chia Chou (CEO of PUC
Berhad), moderated by Jonathan Case were held after Koong’s action-packed
keynote speech.
CEO of PUC
Berhad Cheong Chia Chou presented a staggering statistics that showed a 250 per
cent higher purchase rate when retailers engage customers with at least three
or more channels; it reaffirms the importance of consistent customer experience
and marketing across multiple touchpoints in guaranteeing a higher revenue.
 |
| Six industry experts led an expert forum about “Future Proof Your Business - New Retail Innovations and Interventions” at Quill City Convention Center recently. The expert forum moderated by Jonathan Case assembled a panel that consisted of Cheong Chia Chou, CEO of PUC Berhad, Anwar Jumabhoy, Industry Expert, Redza Shahid, Founder of Grubcycle, and Kent Lee, Founder of Smuzcity. | |
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They further
confirmed that the future of retail needs to promote intimate social
relationships between brands, both international and local, with consumers by
building a physical space that is customer experience-centric.
Quill City
will soon become a borderless retail, edutainment, and experiential learning
center with more international and local tenants to come. Quill invites us to
await for more exciting updates as they ease into more “phygital” era in the
next 12 months.
Grand Opening of JDX Presto Concept Store at Quill City Mall will be on 12 Dec 2019. It will be the Malaysia’s largest cashless concept store that you want to check it out yourselves!
