SmartCentres mall owner Mitchell Goldhar is embracing the cyberselling trends of the digital world and hoping to attract customers to the mall’s bricks-and-mortar stores by setting up drive-through pick-up depots in three of its shopping centres. Three SmartCentres locations in the Toronto area will have Penguin Pick-up spots that serve retailers and other e-commerce customers.
“We know the writing is on the wall,” Goldhar said to The Globe and Mail. “But it’s also an opportunity. It’s also going to be a good business to be in. And it could very well be a way to make our existing shopping centre business busier than it ever was.”
Researcher eMarketer is predicting that e-commerce sales will soar from making up 4.5 per cent of total Canadian retail sales to 8.2 per cent in 2018. Other retail giants like Wal-Mart and Australian shopping centre company Westfield are also joining the trend of offering stations to pick up online orders at their stores.
