Challenges of Marketing in Today's Management of Shopping Centers

Shopping centers are an important aspect of the extremely dynamic life of the 21st century consumer. Nowadays, worldwide, shopping centers represent significant multimillion euro investments, remarking themselves with bold architectures and structures and an individual brand images. Retail markets (and consequently shopping centers) are currently under transformation due to a mixture of new retailing technologies, dramatic shifts in the demographic profile and preferences of more affluent and educated shoppers. Over the time there were identified various factors playing important roles in the success of shopping centers' management, in the 21st century. Among them we may mention: the wide variety of goods and services, the multiple access, the increased security, entertainment offer, etc. But the crisis revealed that the management "by-the-book" sometimes is not enough. Meeting customer needs and increasing sales are the primary drivers behind retailers' use of new technologies. The Marketing in Management has the difficult job of "listening" and consolidating the management of shopping centers for the consumer needs, needs that are in constant change and adaptation, becoming more and more complex along with IT&C technology evolution and the growth of globalization and sophistication level. The author purpose is to analyze the current challenges in the management of key players of the retail business (shopping centers).