Benchmarking retail assets: Laser focused insights for a leading retail developer

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April 23, 2025

The year 1995 witnessed the launch and opening of Deira City Centre (DCC) and by 2005 following the launch of Mall of the Emirates (MOE) Majid Al Futtaim had established themselves as the market leaders within the organised retail sector of the UAE. Since then, their shopping malls have played an unparalleled part in the Dubai success story.

As the company pushed the boundaries of what organised retail meant in the UAE its owners quickly became aware that they needed to better understand the environment within which their malls were operating and more importantly to better understand the reasons behind why the shoppers were coming to the malls time and time again.

The grmc Solution

Since 2004 grmc has undertaken an annual research study and Trade Area Analysis report for Deira City Centre. At the time, the mall was rapidly becoming the centre-piece of Dubai’s emerging retail sector and with the assistance of grmc, Majid Al Futtaim were able to fully understand the market position that Deira City Centre occupied.

 

Since this groundbreaking original study, grmc has been retained as Majid Al Futtaim’s preferred supplier of this work on an annual basis, to the point where grmc now undertakes this work across their entire mall portfolio comprising 11 malls across the Middle East.

Results Achieved

Taking inspiration and lessons learned from global best-practice grmc has been able to deliver a consistently better product for its Mall Benchmark Studies across Majid Al Futtaim’s ever expanding mall portfolio.

 

The client now uses our Mall Benchmark Reports to understand key metrics such as shopper penetration, market-share and Trade Area Cannabalisation, as well as the shifting consumer trends that impact its mall leasing decisions. Additionally, as the reports are used across multiple disciplines they also impact the way in which the malls market their property.

 

Building on the success of these Mall Benchmark Reports and the strong working relationship that has been established because of them, grmc has also worked on many new mall feasibility projects, rollout strategies, market entry strategies, geo-spatial mapping, and developed proprietary gravity and regression models for Majid Al Futtaim.