Re:Can the American mall survive?
by autoexec on Monday September 12, 2022 @11:25PM
(#32820351)
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.
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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.