Now, malls mine customers data to offer better deals

NEW DELHI: Pacific Mall in West Delhi figured out through algorithms that 65% of the customers at its food-court preferred vegetarian food. That prompted the mall to add a Halidram outlet and sales at the food-court went up by Rs 50 lakh a month.

In Bengaluru, Orion Mall found that most of its customers are “trendier” young crowds who mostly purchased fashion and electronics, prompting it to ramp up those verticals.

Taking a leaf out of the ecommerce textbook, malls have started, albeit in a small way, mining customers data and using algorithms to drive sales. Prominent malls in India for years had revenue-sharing agreements with retailers and the shopping centres would receive daily or real-time sales data from brands through a common technological platform.