rinnah’s consumer views|what a consumer really wants and thinks about products and services

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It’s been little over a month since the soft opening of Tropicana City Mall, the newest shopping mall in the Petaling Jaya area. Having visited the place on four separate occasions, I feel that my thoughts and impressions of the mall are ready for publishing.

How to get there
The mall’s website offers a map on how to get there (refer to picture below) but frankly, I find it a little misleading. Why?

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One : The access road from Jalan Damansara over the Sprint highway is in the midst of construction, and therefore not usable at the present moment. By looking at the map, I am given the impression that the road is ready for use.

Two : The map does not indicate that if you’re making the U-turn from SS2 side, the road barricades actually prevent you from turning into the parking lot and there are no further signs to indicate how to get into parking thereon. I wish that the mall management would consider putting up more/bigger signs to indicate the entrance to the parking as people might miss it if they’re driving too fast.

Parking
Right now, parking is FREE and plentiful. I find parking there to be a breeze although those with larger vehicles may find the parking lots to be on the narrower side. However, there are plans by the mall management plans to charge MYR 1.00 for the first 4 hours and MYR 1.00 for every subsequent hour in the future. I have a minor gripe about the exits though. The signs telling me that there is an exit to SS2 actually works out to be a further distance in driving as compared to when I exit directly onto the LDP highway using another exit. Confused? You bet I am.

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Tenants
Main anchor tenants of the mall include Carrefour, Borders, Best Denki, Nichii City and Kitschen at the moment. GSC will be opening a cinema hall there, so that might be more incentive for me to stay for longer periods of time. I find it odd that there are NO fast food tenants in this mall save for Kenny Rogers Roasters (Wendy’s has yet to open), and higher class eating outlets like San Fransisco Steakhouse, Sushi Tei and Santini are more prominently featured. However, that being said, I find that Tropicana City Mall actually has a pretty good mix of tenants. Oh, another minor gripe of mine – why is it so hard to locate Carrefour? I almost forgot that there was a Carrefour in the mall, it is that isolated by itself.

Facilities
Having a highly visible mall directory near to exit points like lifts and escalators would be good. I spent some time wandering around the mall on my initial visit just looking for one particular store. It was a bit frustrating for me as a shopper because I want to know where I’m going to save time.

Oh and the toilets are located behind closed doors some distance down an isolated corridor away from the main mall, which is not very reassuring for female shoppers. Also, on the two occasions that I went, the toilets were extremely wet (think flooded!) and had faulty taps/pipes, which should not be the case for a new mall. For that, the toilets get a thumbs down from me. I’d rather hold and go elsewhere, it’s that awful.

Overall
I think Tropicana City Mall is more of neighborhood mall than a place of attraction mall. I’ll probably end up there only if I have an objective in mind, that is to get/do something there. Otherwise, if I had a choice, I’d rather hang out in 1Utama (same parking fee but longer hours) or the Curve (more places to eat).

Tropicana City Mall
No. 3, Jalan SS20/27
47400 Petaling Jaya
Telephone number : +60 3-7710 1818 / 0101
Facsimile number : +60 3-7710 0202
Email address : enquiries@tropicanacitymall.com
Hours of operation : 10 am till 10 pm daily
Free shuttle service available from Kelana Jaya LRT station

Read other blogger reviews on Tropicana City Mall here :
Pink Elle
william (wN) Ng