The Key to Successful Marketing Strategies With Canal Walk Shopping Centre

Canal Walk showcases digital, interactive indoor maps on their website, delivering an impressive high-end shopping experience just in time for the holiday season.

What is Canal Walk? 

Canal Walk is the largest shopping centre located in Cape Town, South Africa. The mall features a wide selection of stores and entertainment options, including a cinema and arcade centre. To help visitors discover the entirety of their venue and offerings, Canal Walk wanted a digital indoor mapping solution with intuitive wayfinding and navigation. 

Why a Digital Mall Map? 

Finding your way around shopping centres can be challenging, and with holiday shopping right around the corner, this only becomes more overwhelming for the occasional shopper. To eliminate confusion and deliver an enjoyable experience, Canal Walk considered the benefits of a 3D interactive map that visitors could use to search and locate retailers and services, and populate turn-by-turn directions to their desired destinations. With a mall map featured on their website, this also allows visitors to plan their shopping trip ahead of time, thereby increasing shopper productivity during this busy time of the year.

It was also important for Canal Walk to find a solution that makes it easy for them to edit and maintain their map in real-time. This way, they can manage details of the shopping mall and its stores, and update everything from hours of operation to ongoing deals and events. This ensures that visitors have access to accurate and up-to-date location information, while enabling Canal Walk to provide additional visibility for the promotions and events occurring within their venue. 

Finally, Canal Walk wanted a digital map that was not only easy to integrate, but one that fits seamlessly into their website. They wanted the map to feel like an extension of their brand, with colours and theming that are consistent with their digital strategy. 

How We Do It 

Canal Walk implemented Mappedin’s Responsive Web App V2 to deliver an enhanced digital mapping experience with wayfinding and navigation. As a pre-built solution, our Web App was quickly embedded into their website, enabling visitors to search, discover, and navigate the mall with ease. The Mappedin team customized the map theming and colours to fit seamlessly with Canal Walk’s branding and website.

Mappedin’s Web App V2 is accessible from any device, and includes features such as a 3D interactive map, Smart Search, Smart Labels, multi-floor wayfinding, turn-by-turn directions, an outdoor map, category listings, top locations, and more. The 3D interactive map allows shoppers to pan, zoom, rotate, and quickly get acquainted with the mall and its offerings. As the map moves, so do the dynamically displayed elements such as Smart Labels. 

As shoppers carry out their holiday shopping, they can use Canal Walk’s map to search and locate all the stores on their list, and populate intuitive directions along the way. Smart Search provides predictive results as users type, so if visitors are unsure of what they’re looking for, they can simply search for an item, place, category, or brand, and receive a list of suggested locations. For instance, users can type “technology” and view a list of stores or locations that sell or feature this product. 

Alternatively, shoppers can browse through category listings or refer to the top locations highlighted near the search bar. Top locations automatically display the most popular destinations at a venue, or Mappedin customers can select locations manually to showcase specific stores or services. This feature is ideal for advertising new additions to the mall, highlighting locations with ongoing deals and events, and more. Canal Walk can also gather analytics on what visitors are looking for by tracking search and location selections, and use these insights to advertise specific locations. 

The ability to showcase deals, promotions, and events occurring within the venue is extremely beneficial for grasping the attention of shoppers, especially during the holiday season. For instance, malls can highlight promotions, gift wrapping stations, photos with Santa, and more. Location details are editable within Mappedin’s CMS, allowing Mappedin customers to update information such as store names, logos, and descriptions. With customizable fields, relevant details can also be included, such as operating hours, phone numbers, social media accounts, ongoing deals or events, pictures, and external links. For instance, Canal Walk can advertise their ongoing Black Friday event and deals using this feature. Together, this equips shoppers with all the information they need for a successful trip to the mall. 

Start Engaging Your Guests Today

Since successfully launching Mappedin’s Responsive Web App V2, Canal Walk is providing a high-end shopping experience that visitors keep coming back for. With intuitive wayfinding and navigation, and features to showcase locations, events, and deals occurring within the venue, what better way to engage shoppers and drive additional foot traffic this holiday season?

To learn more about our indoor mapping solutions for malls and retailers, or how you can digitally transform your venue to deliver an impressive guest experience, contact us today.