Standort + Markt is headquartered in Lower Austria and has been supporting the retail real estate industry for more than forty years. This consulting company operates across the entire CEE region and provides analyses, market surveys, assessments, as well as evaluations for projects and locations. Due to the company’s years of experience, it provides competent and independent support. Standort + Markt recently published its first estimate regarding the daily revenue losses of Austrian shopping places due to the corona shutdown. Its results provide solid guidelines for the European market in general. Further estimates and updates will be published as they come in.
Their research focused primarily on expected daily revenue losses in malls but also in selected inner cities. According to the Standort + Markt documentation “Shopping Center Österreich 2019/20”, which is currently being finalized, there are 242 shopping centers with a total of 4.07 million sq m of leasable shopping area in Austria, including 141 malls and 101 retail parks. The annual gross revenue of these 242 centers amounted to approximately 13 billion euros (provisional figure) in 2019, generated by roughly 8,700 shops. Standort + Markt located each shopping area with their own GIS system and individually assigned each of them roughly estimated revenue figures. Therefore, it was possible to determine a daily average of the anticipated loss in revenue that will be accrued due to the decreed closings of shopping areas in Austria’s shopping centers.
Retail parks less severely affected
The results of this comprehensive data structure are as follows, however, they do not take further specific characteristics into account–such as seasonality or bridge days: Approximately 77% of the 4.1 million sq m in shopping centers remain closed due to the government’s measures–this amounts to approximately 3.1 million sq m. Based on the previous year’s gross revenue of approximately 13.0 billion euros, one can determine a preliminary theoretical revenue volume per day for all shopping areas in Austrian shopping centers for 300 days. This target value amounts to 43.3 million euros. However, only 31.5% of this revenue is effectively generated. Therefore, shop operators in Austrian shopping centers lose 68.5% of their revenue due to the shutdown, which amounts to a gross figure of 29.7 million euros.
It is interesting and understandable that retail parks are significantly less affected by these revenue losses than malls due to their tenant mix, which focuses characteristically on local supply. Especially bigger malls, which are predominantly fashion-oriented, are struggling in this situation.
