Repair of Retail Buildings Fact-Finding Study 2016
Findings from Retailer Survey and Interview
Xymax Real Estate Institute, together with the research team of Professor Yukio Komatsu of Department of Architecture, Waseda University*1, conducted a survey and interviews. We asked multi-store retailers*2 about repair of their retail buildings. This report presents the result and summary.
Retail buildings are as important as office buildings but are different because they are visited by many unspecified people and spaces are basically used for the purpose of selling goods or services. Therefore the purpose of maintenance is also different from that of office buildings. Our study is to reveal the little-known fact about how retailers repair their stores. We believe this study will improve the level of repair of commercial buildings.
*1 Research team of Professor Yukio Komatsu; Department of Architecture; Waseda University: http://www.waseda.jp/sem-ykom/ (in Japanese only)
*2 Intended respondents of this study: Of goods sellers, restaurants and service companies targeting individual customers, we picked up companies that earned revenue of more than JPY 3 billion in FY2015. (See the information at the end of this report.)
Key Findings
As their repair policy, retailers put priority on keeping the store open: the impact on customers is very important.
84% said satisfaction of customer is important in repair and 75% said safety of customer is important (Figure 1).
32% said the highest priority goes to "keep the store open" (Figure 2).
Approx. 90% said that sudden breakdowns are problems; 50% of them said because they fail to predict the breakdowns.
25% said breakdowns and damages occurred frequently. 61% said they occurred sometimes (Figure 3).
When asked why breakdowns are problems, the most popular answer, chosen by 62%, was that they are unable to know the sign of breakdowns in advance (Figure 4).
Store managers have limited control over decision making of repairs. In companies operating many stores, repairs of stores are often controlled by a small group of head office staff.
Approx. 80% of the store managers are only allowed to go for a JPY50,000 repair per case (Figure 5).
The more the number of directly-operated stores within the company, the more the number of stores controlled by one head office manager (Figure 6).
Less than 50% have a repair plan and budget. The more the number of directly-operated stores, the more the percentage of having such plan.
One third of companies have a repair plan for each store (Figure 7).
The more the number of stores, the more the percentage of having such plan (Figure 8).
Survey and interviews revealed interesting facts.
The most popular response was that the retailers are facing problems and they wish to know the approach taken by other companies.
The executives of companies taking positive repair approach are highly aware of the importance of repairs.
