/ Background

Decoding Shopping Center Dynamics: The Role of Google Maps in Understanding Customer Behavior

Shopping centers today face a multifaceted set of challenges. Firstly, they often lack insight into customer purchasing behaviors, primarily because customers are direct clients of the tenants, not the shopping center itself. As such, unless loyalty programs or customer-oriented apps are in place, direct data remains elusive. Secondly, getting data in a retroperspective is often impossible, making measuring the impact of past alterations in the center or its environment difficult. Thirdly, competition is diverse, not just from other shopping centers, but also from individual shops, city centers, and outlets. Lastly, shopping centers are dependent on the performance and appeal of their tenants. Given these challenges, secondary data sources such as Google Maps are very helpful. They offer insights into what customers like or dislike about a shopping center and its tenants as well as how specific categories like men's clothing or Italian restaurants perform. This information is available not only for the center itself at the present, but also for the past and for its various competitors. This is especially relevant as star ratings and reviews at a platform like GoogleMaps are more than just communication towards the center owner. As ratings and reviews are public, they also act as a communication channel about the center which the center management itself cannot control directly. With more and more people consulting Google Maps for information about locations, understanding this external perception is paramount for businesses.