| Summary: | Shopping centre in Malaysia plays a vital role in promoting economic growth and urban development. By the end of the year 2019, Malaysia will have close to 700 shopping centres in total net lettable area of 170 million sq ft. Malaysia shopping centre industry offers more than 166.6 million square feet of the net lettable area with an estimated real estate value of RM130 billion. Retails contribution to the GDP could expand by 15 per cent from the current 10 per cent in the next five years and it could get better with tourism growth. For the second quarter of 2018, Malaysia's retail industry reported a growth rate of 2.1 per cent in retail sales, compared to the same period in 2017. However, Malaysia's established centre operators recorded an average occupancy rate of 92% in 2018, according to a survey conducted by the Malaysia Shopping Centres Association (PPK). For 671 of shopping centres surveyed in the second half of the year, the average monthly gross rental rate per square feet of net lettable area was found to be RM7.87, while the average monthly expenses over the same area was RM3.07. One way to fill the centres, both new and existing, is tourism. The centres must be interactive. It must have things like artificial intelligence that interact with people. There should be new dynamics in shopping. Centre owners must keep abreast with the latest trends. Pricing and design must be right. Centres are also adding more food and beverage (F&B) outlets, tenants mix and branded outlets. The developers who are looking to set up centres should consider location and connectivity include concept, target market, mixture of tenants, security, parking, cleanliness and making the centres interactive. Given this context, this paper brings the Malaysian shopping centres into focus by classified based on ten categories including super-regional centre, regional centre, neighbourhood, community centre, lifestyle centre, factory outlet, hypermarket, plaza, niche and power centre. The categories based on size, criteria and function each shopping centre. The criteria of shopping centres were validated by expert panels using Delphi Method. Through the criteria, all the shopping centres were categorised in different groups. The study was the step to categorised shopping centre based on suitable categories and it is expected to provide insights to the stakeholders in improving their investment and business decision of the shopping centre in Malaysia. © IEOM Society International.
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