A major South African mall owner says it will scrap parking fees at some shopping centres next year.
Redefine Properties will reportedly have a capped parking fee of R5 everywhere else, according to a report by Business Insider.
Business Insider's Phillip de Wet says the company ran a trial in July which found that reducing or removing parking fees attracted more customers and spending.
Redefine also believes that it doesn't make sense to penalise customers for staying longer at malls.
Redefine owns Centurion Mall, Maponya Mall, Southcoast Mall, Benmore Centre, Blue Route Mall, Riverside Mall, Kenilworth Centre and Wonderboom Junction.
De Wet predicts that other shopping malls may follow suit with the trend when centres owned by Redefine drop their parking fees in 2019.
This is experimental and I think there might be some pushback from some parts of the company.
— Phillip de Wet, Associate Editor at Business Insider Inc
Parking is fairly big business... The business case will have to be established.
— Phillip de Wet, Associate Editor at Business Insider Inc
The reality of shopping malls now is that footfall is falling and it's falling fast... Shopping centres are in trouble, we can see those trends very clearly in the data.
— Phillip de Wet, Associate Editor at Business Insider Inc
The company tells us that it will look strategically at where it drops the booms entirely.
— Phillip de Wet, Associate Editor at Business Insider Inc
Listen to the conversation on The John Maytham Show:
