West Hills Mall in Accra is now in its third month. Johan Venter, asset manager in Ghana for AttAfrica, shares his insights
What has been your personal highlight since opening?
It’s the realisation that we’ve built a truly world-class shopping centre in Accra. The wide tenant mix with international labels is unique in Ghana, with Edgars, Sunglass Hut, Legit, Foschini, Jet, Mango and so on. Also, the underpass that we constructed under the highway to give shoppers access to the mall… it is a true engineering feat.
Have you had a quiet day yet? What are the busiest and slowest days of the week, typically?
The beginning of the week is usually slower. But the mall gets busy in the evening when most people are going back home after work, and also on weekends. Shops trade till 9pm every night, and the restaurants and cinemas obviously keep people there later.
How many people have visited the mall so far?
So far, since we opened in November, we’ve had 2,5 million people through the doors!
What has been the biggest challenges since the mall opened? Anything unforeseen?
We knew the mall would be busy over the festive season, but we underestimated just how busy. Between 25 December 2014 and 2 January 2015 we had 50% more people than we’d imagined – at times you couldn’t push a trolley in the halls, it was so packed with people who just came to look, not necessarily to shop. The parking lots overflowed.
How is the traffic now that sale season is on?
Most of the fashion tenants currently have sales and the price reduction is impressive, ranging from 20% to 70%. It’s off to a slow start, which is typical for January as consumers tend to hold back now after the festive spending. But centre management is advising tenants how to market their sales and we are supporting the sales via Facebook and Instagram.
Your Facebook page has a massive 65 000-plus likes. Are you finding the feedback from customers on there useful?
Yes, it’s a useful tool to use to feed back to tenants; most of the feedback has been really positive.
How are the cinemas doing?
There are five cinema halls, all operated by Silverbird. Two of them started operating around the Christmas period and the remaining three should be open towards the end of February, so we expect a lot more traffic then. The only other cinemas in Accra are in the smaller Accra Mall, in which Atterbury also has a share.
What did West Hills Mall bring to Accra that people are most excited about?
Apart from being the biggest and slickest mall in Ghana, the tenant mix is what excites people most – all those international tenants that can’t be found anywhere else in Accra. Also, believe it or not, the escalators and the lifts – it’s something so new to Ghana, we have literally had busloads of people come to the mall for the express purpose to see the escalators and the lifts. One day 28 people got into one lift and of course it got stuck and we had to force open the doors. On another occasion I encountered a school group of little kids of six, seven, bundling together at the bottom of the escalators. To demonstrate how they worked, I took two little girls by the hand and took them up… I ended up riding the escalator for 40 minutes because each time I got to the bottom there were more of them who grabbed my hands!
What is the nicest feedback you’ve received from a shopper?
It was from a Dutch lady who told me that when she walked into the mall for the first time and looked around, she felt she could have been anywhere in South Africa!
