Posted on 12/25/2017 11:31:09 AM PST by davikkm
With the meteoric rise of online retail in the age of Amazon, consumers have continued to opt more for shopping on the Internet in their pajamas as opposed to running out and getting their shopping done in person. The malls hit their heyday in the 1990s and the U.S. has definitely overbuilt the amount of retail needed per person.
The American mall is now fighting for its life.
A typical large mall in the mid-1990s entailed 142 stores spanning about 1.2 million square feet, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis on 458 malls across the states. Many retailers have diminished dramatically in size while some have vanished entirely.
The average number of stores per mall have changed dramatically over recent years as the Retail Apocalypse continues apace.
(Excerpt) Read more at investmentwatchblog.com ...
The parking lots of every enclosed or strip mall I passed all through the holidays were packed. Somebody is shopping there, and there are plenty of sales at the malls too.
I was in high school before the first mall was built in my hometown.
We lived just fine prior to that.
There’s a website that shows all the closed down Malls. Eerily spooky. Best use of a dying Mall was the Blues Brother’s scene where the cop car was driving around in it.
“Bringing them back?”
Lol. Nope.
What’s in a mall anymore? It used to be THE place to find products. Today, it’s rarely the place to find anything beyond boutique expensive items or cheap garbage I don’t want.
There are 3 malls within 15 miles or so of us. One is in bankruptcy, another will be soon. The third, and oldest, is booming.
L
>>The parking lots of every enclosed or strip mall I passed all through the holidays were packed. Somebody is shopping there, and there are plenty of sales at the malls too.<<
People are SHOPPING at malls. They are BUYING online.
Of course the malls are crowded in the few days before Christmas time since people can’t wait for shipping. But the early part of the season starting with Black Friday belongs more and more to the online retailers.
Malls need to offer more — much more — than mere retail shopping if they are to continue to exist. Many cities are replete with empty malls and those numbers are increasing.
The Mall: where unemployed “teens” seek out their next knock out pal...
ML/NJ
The economics of mall rent, employee cost, liability, culture change no longer make malls a viable alternative to other options. Costco, Sam’s, Walmart and the internet are in the process of wiping them out.
here in pittsburgh, we had century III mall, and it was one of the biggest and best in the u.s. when it opened in the 80’s.....
it is basically a ghost town now...and the main downfall for it was when they opened up the buslines from the ghetto sections of pittsburgh, the thugs brought in their violence and most middle class white folks who shopped there...stopped, it wasnt safe, hell, my family and i were almost jumped by black thugs there, we rarely go there...
the only mall we frequent is called south hills village...and guess what the demographics are like???
the main busy malls in the area today are all located where the thugs cant get to so easily...sure, there are a few times when they do, and you will see the nightly news stories that highlight them....fights, brawls, shootings, etc...
itza a damn shame....
Malls have become places for ‘yuts’ to hang out.
The strip malls do well. You do there, buy stuff, leave.
Traditional malls have too much free space that makes it a place for teens to scare off actual cutomers.
Amazon owns Congress, too. You can find something at the Best Buy - using it as a place to find products and try them out - then go online on Amazon. It’s usually cheaper and you don’t have to pay taxes. How can retail compete with that?
Internet and gangs keep folks away.
That was the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, IL -- about 45 minutes from where I live. Believe it or not, that mall was only FINALLY tore down about five years ago in 2012/2013.
It was slated for demolition before the movie, it was re-built just enough for the movie's famous drive through the mall chase scene, then sat in that state for decades waiting to be demolished. There were several attempts at saving it, none of them panned out as it was in a very economically depressed area.
Outdoor "malls" seem to be doing well. They are not bogged down by big anchors and the thugs don't thrive outside.
The big box stores are going to become warehouses for shipping and receiving. When someone buys something online and wants to return it they’ll take it to the warehouse. Then someone else will buy it and it will be repackaged and shipped out of that warehouse.
As long as we have internet and ferals, no.
Court interference at least hastens the demise of malls. Malls have public transit access and find it hard to keep out ‘youths’ that spoil the experience due to court rulings.
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