A quarter of a century after setting a new trend in shopping, retail tycoon Henry Sy Sr. is again trailblazing with the new Mall of Asia which was built on reclaimed land along the famed Manila Bay. 
       
This time around Mr. Sy has given the reins to Hans Sy who is marketing the 40-hectare mall as a destination and celebration mall. The young Sy, the president of SM Prime Holdings, the owner of the malls, has a firm grasp of the shopping habits of the Pinoys that he could upstage shopping trend guru Paco Underhill, who has catalogued and put forth new theories on shopping habits of people.
      
In a meeting with the press last week at the sneak preview of the Mall of Asia’s offerings, there were two points that the young Sy emphasized and which shows the breadth and depth of his understanding of the Pinoy’s retail anthropology. The first is the Pinoy’s penchant for shopping—“shopping is a hobby, he said—and the remittance phenomenon that is the overseas Filipino workers (OFW) and the attendant celebration that is the hallmark of each OFW arrival.
       
The young Sy apparently fused together the two trends to come up with a new concept in retail that is seen to surpass the themed concept in North America. After this venture, Mr. Hans Sy can have his own book to rival Mr. Underhill’s Call of the Mall and even provide the roadmap to SM Prime’s retail venture into China. The book can provide readers glimpses into the young Sy’s retail secrets.
       
Marketing the new mall as a destination and celebration point provides the backdrop to the choice of tenants. This could be the reason for the IMAX presence. By wooing OFWs with their families in tow to celebrate milestones in their lives and by providing a new experience in shopping, the Mall of Asia sets forth a new trend in mall business that was earlier set forth by SM City along Edsa.
       
SM City, a quarter of a century ago, was predicted the business failure of Mr. Sy Sr. Seen as cavernous, businessmen were skeptical of the new mall’s business strategy, more so its shoebox design, courtesy of the late architect Crescenciano C. de Castro. A noted shooter, Mr. de Castro, a collector of classic and vintage cars, saw Mr. Sy shoot down all doubts and saw through other shoebox- designed SM malls. It was a classic business strategy after all. A vintage Sy. For now, the old Mr. Sy’s failure so far was his futile attempt to land a directorship at the Ayala Corp. which reduced its numbers of directors at its board a few years back.
      
 It will be interesting to know how the young Sy’s retail concept can influence the family’s banking business. Banking, after all, has its retail components ranging from enticing would-be savers to bank products as well as wooing savers from other banks to migrate. By concentrating on retail, such as the OFW families, the family’s Banco de Oro Universal Bank can draw in the crowds just like the malls.
      
There seems to be one problem, though, in going to the Mall of Asia and that is the traffic gridlock at the entrance to the mall site. This has to be solved by the management by having a tollway-style checkup of the baggage compartments of cars. Men, based on a study of Mr. Underhill, are very impatient when it comes to shopping and that is why the malls usually target the men to linger a little more at the department store as that means more sales.
      
Thus, the young Sy has to put in place several inspection booths similar to the NLEX toll booths to hasten entry into the destination mall. Since it is safe to assume that it is the husband who does the driving, the new mall should not allow the man to get out of the entry lane of the traffic gridlock. As per the Underhill book on Why We Buy, the husband, when he does shopping, zips through and is out in less than 20 minutes.