NCR retailers decide not to shut shops after mall owners agreed to discuss rental issues

A group of around 100 retail brands have called off their plans to shut their outlets in malls in the National Capital Region (NCR) on Thursday and Friday after the group said mall owners reached out to them for dialogues on the rental issues.

“After the decision was announced (to shut stores), we got calls from multiple mall owners suggesting that we continue our engagement with them to conclude deals in the spirit of mutual benefit,” said Rahul Mehta, one of the coordinators for the retailers. “We are keen to build on this and hope that we can arrive at a fair formula at the earliest. In the spirit of this partnership, we believe that we don’t need to have a protest closure at this point of time”.

The development comes barely a day after the motley group of retailers including Aditya Birla Fashion, Arvind Fashions, Bestseller Retail, Skechers, Iconic department store chain, Adidas, Reebok, Puma among other retailers and brands, had on Tuesday collectively requested malls to move to a “sustainable and viable” rental structure and said the Covid-19 crisis has hit retailers hard.

“The second wave has seen far more devastation and uncertainty of periodic lockdowns in different parts of the country, with restrictive timings of operations even in unlocked areas,” a common letter from the retailers to different malls said. “This was the reason many of us have approached you help to review the existing rent structure, as the current model of fixed and guaranteed amounts of rentals is simply not viable in these uncertain times.”

Retailers demanded malls to move to a pure revenue-sharing model with no minimum guarantee for a year to tide through the current crisis.

However, the mall owners did not respond to retailers’ pleas, the letter said.

“As a result, a large number of leading retailers have decided to express their disappointment and sheer helplessness by not operating their stores in all malls in Delhi NCR region on Thursday/Friday 24th and 25th June this week,” the letter said.

Now retailers said they have received assurances to talk from different malls developers and, hence, they have decided not to go ahead with the protest shutdown of outlets.