Re:Can the American mall survive?
by cmarschner on Monday September 12, 2022 @10:16PM
(#32820018)
They would make the most sense if the parking lot that surrounds them were converted into 4 story residential housing, a commuter rail station, and a bus stop.
One thing that will change is the number of people who enter the mall and only spend money in a single place before leaving. Stores in the mall have traditionally benefited greatly from people drawn in by other stores. A customer might enter the mall to buy an article of clothing at one shop, but then also decide to grab a coffee and later also spend money at the bookstore. Very few people are going to spend their money on an hour at the dance studio and then pay for another hour at the climbing gym and then go bowling. When shops were retail it was easy to walk out with bags from several different shops every time you went in, but when shops are experiences they require a lot more time and energy from shoppers.
Re:Can the American mall survive?
by marcofatica on Tuesday September 13, 2022 @02:30PM
(#32828383)
You're thinking about it backwards, the experiences are what draw them in to then spend money in the other stores after their hour of activity
Once the retail is all gone (and most of it will since it can't compete with online in prices or selection), with the exception of food (which is an experience has it's own limitations) what can the mall offer besides experience/activities? Only a few stores really benefit from hands on, and even the people who do stop into a retail store after an hour at the dance studio, or the gym, or the comedy club will still pull out their phone and check amazon to price check items.
Hands-on also means immediate gratification and no-hassle returns.
Online can't quite match on the immediate gratification factor. If you hit the magic sweet spot of things in the right warehouses, you can get some things in a few hours, but if I go to a in-person store, there's no guessing.
If it's wrong or faulty, I can get an immediate replacement or refund rather than waiting on a RMA process.
That's true, I'll give amazon some credit for trying their best to make returns easy, but it's still obnoxious when the number of cheap counterfeits and poorly made products is so high. No matter how easy they make it, the time and frustration involved with doing without while you wait for another roll of the dice is high.
The end-cap Sears carcass has been demolished. Apartments are being built in its place, with a private breezeway connecting them to the mall.
Two adjacent large stalls are now an enormous arcade and bowling alley. A stand-up comedy venue has replaced Ruby Tuesday. There's an escape room now, indoor bunjee jumping, and a dance studio too. A deaf people's advocacy group has a neat little cultural center.
There's a bunch of new, huge sculptures in the large center area. Someone finally had the presence of mind to install some seating. The big sculptures deaden some of the noise. It's a genuinely pleasant place to just sit, socialize, and people watch.
The big multi-level carousel is still there. Sadly, they took down the huge steel-cable jungle gym, but the one they replaced it with looks a lot friendlier to toddlers.
For my entire childhood, half the food court stalls were empty. The other half were bland fast food. Today, all the stalls are filled, and the available options span many cultures.
Despite all this, a lot of things are pretty much the same. The retail is still there, there's just fewer redundant stores. Almost every store that remains has an obvious reason for its physical existence.
Conceptually, malls still make sense. They will always make sense, as long as buildings that share walls with each other are cheaper and more energy-efficient. In order to survive, a mall must find ways to make people want to visit the mall.