more new malls opening up

In the last one month, 3 mega malls have opened up in KL. DH and myself have yet to visit any of these new malls and we won't be til another month or two. There's no point being there as not all shops are opened yet plus the traffic to these malls will be bad at this moment.

DH was telling me about a friend who had two kiosks in KLCC selling sunglasses. He had initially reserved two stores in Pavilion and The Gardens but pulled out last minute from the contract after realizing that he might not sustain with immense competition. As a retailer, not only does he need to invest in used point of sale to reduce cost, he needs to invest in a bulk of inventory to start the new shops. Currently, he's using ibm pos equipment and Fujitsu point of sale equipment which have been serving his business well. But he's concerned about not being able to handle the high rental costs if the initial sales are not favourable.

So I guess running a retail business these days isn't easy after all. Competition, high operating costs, manpower costs, rental, inventory are all part of the business investments that need serious consideration.