Located in high traffic areas at key Simon centers, digital directories take shoppers on a journey through a 65", LCD, full HD touch screen. The interactive maps display the fastest route for shoppers to take to store locations and center services. The directories come to life when a shopper walks within a few feet of the screen.
With over 1.2 billion monthly active users, Facebook Messenger has an audience that matters. The Shop Simon messenger bot offers users localized information about stores, restaurants, deals, events and amenity details at more than 200 Simon centers. Shoppers are easily guided to find the answers they need quickly. Live Chat with a local representative can be initiated within the bot as well.
Now live at 52 Simon properties, giving Simon the largest network of Return Bar location in the shopping center industry, this innovative service removes the hassles of online shopping returns. Housed at Simon Guest Services® at select centers, Happy Returns processes the return, initiates the refund and handles the return shipping for the shopper in a simple and seamless manner.
A new “Fulfillment-as-a-Service”(FaaS) solution provided by PFSweb that enables mall-based retailers to fulfill eCommerce orders without allocating additional space, staffing, hardware or software, thereby maximizing the omni-channel value of their physical stores. RetailConnect will initially support “Buy Online/Ship From Store” transactions from a centralized RetailConnect Depot at Simon centers and grow to encompass same day delivery, in-store pick-up, curbside delivery, or centralized pick-up at centers.
Last Mile Terminal ™ “LMT” Is a full-service omni-channel logistics center located in Roosevelt Field Mall to provide packaging, shipping, and local delivery services from mall stores to consumers. LMT facilities utilize proven WMS software and logistics automation to supply retailers with a cost-effective, easy-to-use system. The LMT platform gives the customer a seamless shopping experience with options for same day, next day, and standard delivery. LMT also offers a wide variety of other value-added services to retailers and brands that include, returns processing, inbound freight, gift wrapping, branded packaging, and coming soon a “Shop Hands-Free” app for a premium shopping experience.
As an industry first, the Simon team ran an exclusive pilot with Google across 16 centers for 9 months that enabled shoppers to interact with our fully automated chatbot across search and maps. It utilized Google's advanced natural language processing (NLP) engine making the chat interactions fast, intuitive & flawless and provided Simon a real-time way of better serving our shoppers. It also provided direct connectivity with our shoppers via seamless bot-to-agent handoffs when inquiries were made that were beyond the bot's knowledge base via Front's rich multi-touch point inbox solution.
The Simon Cup was a co-produced national esports tournament between Simon and Allied eSports and was a first-of-its-kind program that featured a Fortnite competition, appearances by FaZe Clan, online qualifiers, regional finals and gaming festivals in New York and Los Angeles, and weekly prizes and giveaways. The tournament concluded with a Grand Final at HyperX Esports Arena Las Vegas, where a winner was crowned and awarded the Grand Prize – a $50,000 shopping spree at a Simon Shopping Destination.
Waikele Premium Outlets now offers Digital Voice Translators for non-English-speaking shoppers, making Waikele the first Simon property to provide this revolutionary amenity. This brand-new offering is Waikele Premium Outlets' next step towards eliminating language barriers for guests while on property. The service supports over 28 languages including Japanese, Korean and Chinese, which allows shoppers to translate their speech to better communicate with sales associates and others while on property.
The next big thing is here. Introducing Launchpad, by Simon. Before it’s online, before it hits stores, discover the latest “it” products at Launchpad. With six (6) locations across Simon shopping centers live since Black Friday 2018 , Launchpad is a brand new scalable retail platform for both emerging and established brands to pilot new products and expedite the hottest new trends at Simon's highly productive shopping centers.
Efficient shopping is the name of the game, and that is what order-ahead dining at a number of our shopping centers delivers to our shoppers. With QUICKEATS at SIMON, hungry shoppers can skip the line, and place a mobile order from their favorite restaurants and pick up their food directly from the restaurants or eateries. Simple, easy and quick. Making more time for more shopping while on-center.
Bagfree shopping helps our guests make the most of their shopping trips by freeing them from the burden of lugging around their packages and bags. Instead, shoppers can shop in participating stores, and when they're ready for some relief, they can drop off an unlimited number of bags throughout the day at any Dropit Spot. Dropit will then deliver the shopper's packages to them later in the day for free. It's magical convenience on-demand all available through a simple mobile iOS or Android app & across all four of our Las Vegas properties.
Simon is committed to sustainable practices at our properties, and one way we put this into action is by providing shoppers with electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. Simon's network of EV charging stations provides options for EV and plug-in hybrid drivers to charge while shopping or dining. Simon's first EV charging station was installed in 2011 and its ever expanding network of stations currently totals 645 at 110 locations in 20 states (as of July 2019).
Across more than 500 digital directory screens during holiday 2017, a fun augmented reality segment was added to surprise & delight shoppers as they passed by these interactive shopper touch points. Shoppers were magically transformed into a reindeer, complete with auto-zoom and real-time motion tracking to make the virtual transformation seamless bringing smiles to all.
A first for the U.S., the Simon team is yet again re-inventing what the mall of the future will look, with the help of a great partner - Disney Junior. The play area at La Plaza Mall was massively transformed into an immersive & interactive experience, complete with two unique zones that are age-level targeted. One for toddlers and another for children up to the age of 10 years old. This free amenity gives another glimpse of what our centers will continue to evolve to.
Simon has assembled a skilled content marketing team that curates content from Simon retailers and restaurants. What’s New Now, a program now across 114 Simon centers, gives shoppers access to the best deals and events via Simon’s websites, email and social media. It’s a simple idea - to tell shoppers what’s happening today at their local center - and it has proven to be one of our most successful campaigns.
Across all centers, the innovation team at Simon set out to help shoppers better understand what brands are carried and what categories of products are covered at many of it's leading retailers. This new way of looking for brands and categories is already being quickly adopted by shoppers as they better try to understand what products stores carry in their local center.
Helping the Chinese based tourist better understand where Simon Shopping Destinations are located here in the U.S. and what stores & amenities are offered within each center was the goal that this latest app-within-an-app delivers upon. For WeChat app users, the Simon mini-program now allows convenient and accurate center-level information to be browsed all from within the native WeChat app experience, in both Mandarin and English.
For the 2017 holiday, the Simon team decided to add a conversational-style buying guide feature onto Simon's already successful Facebook Messenger chatbot. This localized gift guide is operated by none other than Santa, in which it aides shoppers in finding the perfect present, all the way down to specific micro-categories and the best stores that carry those types of items in the mall.
To brighten holiday spirits in 2017, Simon's innovation group launched an interactive app that let shoppers of all ages experience the North Pole like they've never have before, by stepping thru an augmented reality (AR) doorway to a magical winter wonderland and become one of Santa's Helpers in a virtual reality-like (VR) world. Within this immersive mobile game that had to be played on-center, players were able to win a free prize even for completing the game.
Set in one of America’s most iconic shopping centers (Roosevelt Field), The Edit is a scalable retail platform for both budding and established brands to pilot new products, new dimensions and new territory. Think strategic product curation, disruptive positioning and online efficiency— all within a brick and mortar space. Design-centric, experience driven, and completely transitional, The Edit is the place to discover new.
Partnering with both the Apple Maps and Mappedin teams, Simon is now able to update all of its shopping center indoor maps that appear within Apple Maps in a near-real time manner. This simplifies the ongoing maintenance and upkeep efforts and helps ensure that Simon's indoor maps that are contained within the Apple Maps app are always up-to-date, accurate and useful.
Virtual personal assistants, like Amazon's Alexa & Apple's Siri, are a transformative force in the digital world, as more and more search volume heads to voice. As an industry first, Simon is now leveraging Alexa via a custom skill that enables shoppers nationwide to locate a nearby Simon center, find a store of interest and even get top deals happening now at that prefered center, all by just saying, "Hey Alexa, ask Simon..."
Building on the successful interactive mapping platform that Simon pioneered and deployed across all of its centers, this latest release brings to life the ability to fully localize the experience in a deep and meaningful way. This way, Simon is able to best serve its shoppers in their preferred local language.
Taking this strong loyalty program to the next level was the goal. To do so, a complete overhaul was performed that involved total digitization of all legacy, print-only VIP Savings Passport offers which greatly enriched the online value proposition, utility and overall user experience of this core shopper offering.
Simon, a global leader in the ownership of premier shopping, dining, entertainment and mixed-use destinations and an S&P 100 company, is constantly innovating to create the best shopping experience for our shoppers.
