Westland Mall launches omnichannel shopping platform

A Florida-based shopping center is enhancing its e-commerce site to open mall retailers to digital customers.

Hialeah, Fla.-based Westland Mall is relaunching its website with a digital platform called “Shop Now” that enables its customers to search participating retailers in the mall for products. Shoppers can use the tool to pre-plan their in-person visit, as well as add products to a wish list, which acts like a shopping list.

Westland Mall intends this new omnichannel tool show those customers planning a trip or already at the mall, in real time, what items are in stock at select favorite retailers. The platform can be used to search for any product sold at the shopping center via keyword or category.

Leveraging the Shop Now platform, customers can search for any product they are looking for from the center’s participating retailers – “red shoes” for example – and the site will display all the red shoes available from the directory of applicable Westland Mall retailers.

Real estate investment firm Centennial, which acquired Westland Mall in January 2022 after assuming management in October 2021, first launched Shop Now in late 2020 on several of its shopping center websites, beginning with MainPlace Mall in Southern California.

At that time, the Shop Now platform, created in partnership with artificial intelligence (AI) and e-commerce technology company Adeptmind, was the first of its kind in the U.S. Since then, Centennial has added Shop Now capabilities to each of its shopping centers nationwide. Westland Mall now becomes the first shopping center in the Miami-Dade area to add a mall-wide search engine to its service offerings.

“We’re excited that Westland Mall is able to bring this innovative program to the South Florida market,” said Anabel Llopis, regional marketing director for Centennial. “Using the Shop Now! platform, our guests will be able to search our participating retailers’ products from the comfort of their homes or on their cell phones 24 hours a day, helping them plan their visit to Westland Mall in advance, knowing exactly what our stores have to offer before they arrive.”

“Centennial has earned a reputation as a thought leader in the retail real estate industry, and our relationship with Adeptmind is yet another example of our innovative nature,” says Colleen Heydon, senior VP of marketing, Centennial. “With Shop Now, Centennial has once again led the industry with a new service that revolutionizes the way people interact with their local shopping center.”

“At Adeptmind, our objective is to create a new dimension for today’s traditional brick-and-mortar shopping centers, adding an expansive digital front end that brings all of the center’s offerings together through a single online interface,” said Jesse Michael, managing director, Adeptmind. “The Adeptmind platform will be a retail game-changer for brick-and-mortar shopping centers like Westland Mall, providing the kind of modern shopping environment today’s consumers demand.”

There are no apps to download for customers to use Shop Now. They simply visit the Westland Mall website and either use the search bar or click Shop Now from the main navigation menu. There are currently 25 retailers participating in the Shop Now program at Westland Mall, including H&M, Victoria’s Secret, Pink, Macy’s, J.C. Penney, Foot Locker, Finish Line, and Bath & Body Works.

Westland Mall is an 835,000-square-foot regional shopping center in Hialeah, Florida, just northwest of Miami. The shopping center holds nearly 100 retailers, services and restaurants.