The study of the impact of online shopping on the operation of shopping malls’ business in Hong Kong

Abstract

In this decade, online shopping develops quickly and become a trend. Some of the traditional retail companies were affected by the trend and closet down. Besides, the revenue of some of those companies was reduced because of the trend. Hence, it is widely adopted that online shopping will replace the traditional selling method. Hong Kong, an international and a well-developed city with many shopping malls, the citizens get used to purchasing and spending their time in the malls. As the trend of online shopping is also widely adopted in Hong Kong, Hong Kong shopping malls are also affected by the trend. Hence, tenant and management companies of the shopping mall. To face the trend of online shopping, both of them used different strategies in order survive or maintain the revenue of themselves. In this study, it is aimed to find out the impact of online shopping to the operation of Hong Kong shopping malls. First, it will evaluate the trend of online shopping in Hong Kong and its impact to the operation of Hong Kong shopping malls. After that, it will study their strategies for facing the trend. At last, it will make conclusion and recommendation according to the study result. The study is mainly base on the research of Amit Saha regarding to the impact of online shopping to the retail business; literature review of Zheng Zengkai’s research about the impact of online shopping among Hong Kong shopping malls. Furthermore, it will adopt the theory of Unitarian and non-unitarian behaviour; accessibility, etc. Those pervious researches and literatures will support the study. Apart from that, it will assist the design of questionnaires and in-depth interview script. Furthermore, a conceptual framework was designed according to the literature review. This study adopted the method of mixed approach on collecting data that using both quantitative and qualitative approach. The researcher had conducted 100 questionnaires with the customer of the shopping malls and had also conducted 100 questionnaires with the tenant of the malls. Moreover, 4 in-depth interview had conducted with the manager of the shopping malls’ shops and representative of shopping malls’ management companies. The interviewees were chosen from two shopping malls in New Territory. The result sof the research proved that some customers swift to use online selling platform for shopping which reduced the function of shopping malls of providing selling platform. Besides, the revenue of shopping malls’ tenants was affected.

To survive under the trend of online shopping, both tenants and management companies of shopping malls had also adopted multiple strategies. For example, they used technology for enhancing their revenue or human flow. Besides, some tenants had sharpen their characteristics for enhancing their competitive edge. For the management companies, they enhanced the shopping environment by redecorating or changing the setting of malls and shops.