Multinationals within walking distance

According to dr. Károly Flaskay, managing director of PWC, the rate at which new shopping malls are built seems to be falling. On the other hand, hyper markets seem to be moving into the central areas of cities, like Tesco is moving into Domus buildings. There is disagreement between experts whether the market is saturated, or not. During the past 11 years expansion was the trend for shopping malls. An interesting index for the popularity of shopping malls might be the number of people going to cinemas located in shopping malls. If this number is growing, there is still room for development, whereas if this number is falling, the market is saturated. According to this method, we have already reached a saturated market. Another group of experts however, still regard shopping malls as good investment. According to them, visiting shopping malls has become a way of life and this is not present everywhere yet, where infrastructure and neighbourhood would allow it to be present. The market can still expand, since the young people of the generation socialised in shopping malls are turning into wage earners now. Yet another trend has been detected in hyper markets: they seem to be moving inwards from the suburbs. Tesco is the first, relocating to buildings which used to be Domus stores. These buildings are radically different from former Tesco stores. It has several floors, it is not a single hall, which means the complete supply chain might need to be adapted as well. Such projects seem to be more costly than previous ones, but the vicinity of densely populated areas with a lot of pedestrian traffic might compensate this disadvantage. Neighbourhood Tescos may prove to be a major challenge for the small stores united in domestic retail chains, since their biggest competitor will literally be next door to them.