RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Nine­ty-four per cent of South Park's re­tail stores have re­opened to­day.

South Park's mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant, Ro­ry Moses, told Guardian Me­dia that dis­counts and waivers were giv­en to store own­ers by the mall's man­age­ment as they grap­pled with the fall out of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Moses said this en­abled many of them to re­open.

"We si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in­creased the so­cial me­dia ad­ver­tis­ing and ra­dio pres­ence, so cus­tomers are aware of the es­sen­tial stores in op­er­a­tion," he said.

He al­so said that some re­tail store own­ers have uti­lized the grants and loans which were made avail­able by the Gov­ern­ment.

"What this glob­al pan­dem­ic has shown is that in­no­va­tion is the next step to trans­for­ma­tion. We saw how some of our re­tail stores quick­ly de­signed and im­ple­ment­ed their on­line web­sites, which is now an added in­come stream. We all, as busi­ness own­ers, must do what is best to en­sure the suc­cess of our com­pa­nies," Moses said.

As­sess­ments of oth­er malls in South Trinidad are now un­der­way.