Having an idea for an F&B concept may win you the battle. However, being able to collate the concept and present it in a professionally created proposal will win you the war.
Securing a meeting with mall representatives
Majority of the malls in Singapore requires a submission of a business proposal detailing all the important aspects of your F&B concept. Incidentally, this document is a prerequisite for mall marketing representatives to engage you for your ideal space for your requirement, consideration, and needs.
One of the common challenges most F&B owners faced is not understanding how to piece together such a proposal. As a result, most F&B owners end up turning their backs on malls, walking away from potentially winning spaces. So, let us help you by detailing what exactly goes into the proposal?
The Key Segments of The Proposal
View your proposal as your executive summary of your business. And assuming the perspective of a mall, it would allow us to understand why they require what they do. Remembering that malls are a business in itself, they would want to reduce their risks as well. So, what would a mall want to know about a new business?
The malls would want to know:
- What it would look like besides all the other businesses;
- The different types of offering in terms of products (food) your business will have;
- What plans the business has in place stay open during the mall’s opening hours;
- How the business will be bringing in customers of their own; and,
- What technical requirements the business has in terms of power and size.
Interior Design Concept
We all know the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, it would see that malls require at least two thousand words on how your business space will look when it is completed.
Be sure to include at least two 3D views of your proposed shopfront design. This is by no means a one-time use collateral. You can repurpose these 3D visuals in your marketing plans too for store launch and even press release kits to garner publicity for your opening.
Detailed Food Menu
A full food menu with individual pricing for each dish and drink is the next required segment for your F&B concept. This helps you as much as it helps the mall.
Having a clear picture of what you will serve, and the price point of each product will be beneficial to your overall business planning and future. As a matter of fact, this step helps you more than the malls. As you may know, all businesses inside every mall will have a Point of Sale (POS) Machine connected to the mall’s master controller. Through this, the mall is able to gather data points on each individual product, how well it performs and what is the best price point for its products to be at.
By including a detailed food menu and pricing strategy, the mall is able to validate your business viability in the long run. Remember, malls are a business themselves and succeed by having successful businesses in their malls.
Manpower Strategy
What will be your staffing strategy, how many staff will you have per shift, will they be part-timers or full-timers? Understanding this will help you create your 6-months, 12-months, and 3-years budgets.
This requirement from the mall is nothing more than to ensure your business will be able to match the operating hours of the malls.
Marketing Strategy
First of all, at MallSpaceAsia, we have learned many things from Apple, not the least that you have to have great marketing to attract people to your great products.
Similarly, malls are businesses as we have discussed previously and are interested as to what you will employ as your main marketing strategy; be it Facebook, WeChat, Instagram marketing, and the allocated monthly budget for such strategies. With a low budget, perhaps you can run competitions with people sharing your product and their experiences with your brand. There are certainly tons of ways to go about marketing with different budget categories.
Remember to split your marketing budget into different channels so as to reach out to different customer segments.
Detailed Space Requirements
Finally, this brings us into the technical requirements of your business. What would your approximate space requirements be? Consider the size of kitchen and dining, power requirement, exhaust provision, water provision, seating capacity, etc.
Are you thinking of a takeaway kiosk concept? Or are you looking at a relaxing café setting? Perhaps a larger crowd for restaurants? Remember to consider the different initial investment for each of the different space requirements.
What to do After Creating your Proposal
Congratulations for successfully creating your F&B concept proposal! Armed with such details of your business professionally presented in a proposal, the mall’s leasing manager shall discuss with their internal team and will propose a suitable space for you. This process will normally be completed within a week’s time.
Need Help?
We have gathered several resources in the event you require assistance on one or more of the required segments for your proposal or the overall process.
We have a team of real estate relationship managers, business consultants, interior design consultants, marketing consultants, fulfillment consultants and much more to assist you in any queries you may have!