Prangin Mall Case Study: Bringing a Shopping Mall Online

Prangin Mall is one of Malaysia's oldest local shopping malls. Shoppers also know it for its wide range of retailers, from small independent shops to large stores.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. Lockdowns kept shoppers at home, and sales at the mall's retailers suffered as a result. Prangin Mall wanted to help its tenants recover those sales, even while foot traffic was out of reach.

• Restore sales for retailers affected by the lockdown.
• Let customers keep supporting their favourite stores from home.
• Bring many separate retailers together in one online destination.
• Handle the practical side of selling online: questions, payment and getting goods to customers.

A mall marketplace is different from a single-brand online shop. Many stores, each with its own products, must sit side by side in one consistent experience. Customers should feel they are browsing one mall, not ten unrelated websites.

For this reason, our UI and UX design work focused on structure. Shoppers needed clear ways to browse by category and by store. In addition, the checkout had to feel familiar and trustworthy, because some customers might be new to buying from these retailers online.

The other priority was operations. After all, a marketplace only works if orders reach shoppers reliably. We therefore treated support, delivery and payments as core features, not extras.

Using our web development and e-commerce expertise, we built and launched Prangin Mall's online marketplace. The mall's participating stores make up the marketplace, which includes:

A multi-store marketplace

Participating retailers sell side by side in one online mall. As a result, customers can shop several of their favourite stores in a single visit.

Live chat support

Shoppers can ask questions through live chat before they buy. This recreates some of the help they would get from staff in a physical store.

Delivery and pick-up

Customers can have purchases delivered or choose to pick them up. That flexibility suits both shoppers at home and those who prefer to collect in person.

Payment integration

Integrated payment systems let customers pay securely online. Consequently, a purchase can be completed in one smooth flow, from browsing to checkout.

Prangin Mall launched its online marketplace, and it has run smoothly since. Customers can now support their favourite retailers from home by buying online. Moreover, the mall's tenants gained a sales channel that does not depend on foot traffic.

• A digital channel protects you against disruption. That's because retailers with an online storefront can keep selling when physical visits stop.
• Group businesses together for more pull. A single marketplace for many stores attracts more shoppers than separate small websites.
• Plan fulfilment early. Delivery, pick-up and payment decisions shape the whole build, so settle them before design starts.
• Keep the human touch. Live chat gives online shoppers the reassurance they would normally get in store.