EMBRACING “PHYGITAL” ERA AS QUILL CITY MALL WELCOMES NEW TENANTS AND LEADS THE WAY INTO THE FUTURE OF RETAIL

As 2019 is coming to an end in welcoming a new resourceful beginning, Quill City Mall is taking a new turn with a brand new retail strategy called “phygital” as it marched anticipatingly towards the New Year of 2020. This “phygital” ecosystem is focused on maximizing shoppers’ experience by providing a comprehensive platform for retailers to engage with consumers in meaningful ways.

In conjunction with this, Quill City Mall has also led a forum gathering 5 retail industry players as they explore the future of retail impacted by the “phygital” era inaugurally hold recently at Quill City Convention Center.

 “Many malls in Malaysia are 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. As such, Quill City Mall 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 have and haven’t been focused on pushing their products online, to envisage the essential role of physical experience plays in building a strong and memorable relationship 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 with the 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 (offline to online and vice versa) 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, as Quill City’s “phygital” mall has a vision and purpose to become a platform for local entrepreneurs to showcase their products globally in order to reach a wider demography.

“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 called JDX Presto Concept Store. The store is not only cashless but it is also staffless and borderless. This swiftly makes it 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 5 retail gurus including Anwar Jumabhoy (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% 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- termed as omnichannel.

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 centered on customer experience.

Quill City will soon become a borderless retail, edutainment, experiential learning center with more both international and local tenants to come. So stay tuned closely to Quill City as it brings forth more exciting updates and various programs in the pipeline, in realizing the “phygital” era in the next 12 months.

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