D&R opens 2 stores in Mersin and Florentia Village, how do bookstores grow in malls?

Palm City is D&R’s 5th store in Mersin. The brand is not testing a new market here; it is adding a point to a customer base it already knows.

Florentia Village is D&R’s 57th store in Istanbul. According to Paradergi, Florentia Village sits 5 minutes from Istanbul Airport and opens its first phase with 190 stores and 65,000 m² of leasable area. The project aims to reach a total of 110,000 m² with its second phase.

Store size, investment and staffing are not in the report. It also does not say whether the Florentia Village store runs as a discount outlet or a standard store. So we compare the two stores on location and dates only.

A fifth store makes the brand easier to reach where customers already look for it. The risk is sharing customers with existing stores; the gain is catching which district and mall gather the foot traffic.

An early tenant is visible during the project’s first promotional wave and secures its place in the tenant mix. Florentia Village’s target of more than 15 million visitors a year is a goal reported by Paradergi, not a figure already achieved. In a new project, customer flow may not settle in the first months. Plan for the long run, so a quiet shop window does not trigger panic.

A project 5 minutes from the airport is open to travellers and tourists as well as city shoppers. Books, gifts and hobby supplies suit that customer’s unplanned purchases. How much of that flow reaches the store can only be measured in the months after opening.

According to Kayaman, D&R manages an average inventory of 250,000 items across 9 categories, and about 80% of it is books. That is far more than any shopper can browse, so choosing what to put in front of them is where curation becomes daily work.

Let’s say a customer lingers at the book table and notices the hobby or music section next to it. The longer the discovery, the more chance the average basket has to grow. But an experience space is a cost. If nobody tracks sales per square metre, stock sits on the shelf and the floor space is rented for nothing.

According to Kenan Kocatürk, president of the Turkish Publishers Association, 407,777,284 banderoled books were produced in 2025, against 413,860,263 in 2024. New book titles numbered more than 100,000. With production slightly down and new titles plentiful, choosing well becomes the bookseller’s core job.

An independent shop will struggle to beat a wide-range chain on price. Its strengths are expertise and speed: special orders, school supply lists, knowing neighbourhood regulars by name. That difference is the only thing that turns window shoppers into customers.

A customer who spends time in a bookstore stays longer in the mall, and a coffee break becomes more likely. A cafe next to the bookstore, or on the same floor, can take a share of that flow. That neighbourhood is worth raising at the rent table.

Known chains joining a project signal its pulling power, but they are not a guarantee. Ask for the opening schedule, the phase plan and the first tenant list. For a related read on how mall investors use data-led management tools, see our piece on Esas Gayrimenkul.

Each store needs its own business profile, with the mall name, floor, hours and phone number entered correctly. Showing up for searches like “bookstore Mersin” or “Florentia Village stores” brings the new store its first customers.

One page per store sends a stronger local search signal than a single “our stores” list. That page can carry directions, in-store events and featured categories. For an experience-led store, the events calendar is the strongest local content you have.

Start a few days before opening and run through the first month. Targeting can be set up separately for the mall’s surroundings and, at a project like Florentia Village, for airport travellers. For how a seasonal product edit is told online, take a look at K-Land’s winter picks.

Group the stores in your target mall by category and mark who competes with you and who complements you. If you share a floor with an anchor store, you get a share of its foot traffic. Empty categories may be open ground for you.

Leave out the products that do not fit the mall’s customer. List your fastest-moving items and build the new store around them. We handle store-level positioning like this as part of our marketing consultancy.

For the official framework on mall leases, review the shopping centres page of Türkiye’s Ministry of Trade. Read the common area charges and opening hours clauses separately. Verify with the official source; this is not legal or financial advice.

It can help with visibility and rent negotiation, but customer flow may not settle in the first months. Base the decision on the project’s phase plan and your own cash resilience.

Yes, if it competes on expertise and service rather than price. Special orders, school lists and personal attention to regulars are areas a chain cannot easily copy.

The report does not say whether the store runs in outlet format or as a standard store. That needs checking through D&R’s own channels.