The holiday season is hands down the busiest time of the year for malls and retail locations. Last year, over 165 million people shopped over Black Friday weekend alone.
With the holiday season approaching, malls and retail locations are in full preparation mode for the shopping craze, from hiring seasonal employees, preparing marketing materials, or making sure organization procedures are in place for the influx of people.
Concept3D’s immersive, 3D maps can help simplify and organize some of the craziest parts of holiday shopping, from parking lots to wayfinding. Here are a few ways that interactive maps can improve holiday shopping for shopping centers, customers, staff and vendors:
Crowd Control
With thousands of people shopping at the same time, looking for the same items and sales, crowds can get overwhelming at malls during the holidays. With these types of crowds it is easy for someone to find themselves walking aimlessly trying to find the right store.
With interactive maps, malls can easily display where all of the different stores are located. Shopping centers can even take it a step further with integrated point-to-point wayfinding technology, that will display walking directions from one store to another. All maps are mobile-friendly, so customers can easily access the directions wherever they are standing. This helps streamline the shopping process for customers and can also help with crowd control with less people walking in circles.
Store Information
Now that Black Friday has morphed into a weekend of shopping, and sometimes even begins on Thanksgiving itself, it can be difficult for customers to keep straight all of the deals happening at various stores.
Interactive maps can serve as an informative tool for the individual stores to promote store hours, special sales or discounts happening throughout the weekend. For example, the Boca Center has all of their shops listed and when clicked on information on the store’s offerings as well as the store hours are listed, for easy customer access.
Parking
Mall parking during the holiday season is madness. Sometimes it feels like it takes just as long to park as it does to get into the mall and buy the gift you were coming for. But with an immersive map, malls can help save customers time and frustration.
These maps can be used to show people exactly where to park, information on pricing or restrictions, and rideshare drop-off and pickup locations. Real-time data feeds can even show lot occupancy and how full the lot is – essentially taking the stress out of parking. For example, the Boca Center has all of their parking lots highlighted on their interactive map as well as shows where valet parking is available for $3.
Our interactive maps can help make one of the busiest times of the year more enjoyable and less stressful.
