The big expensive malls are doing fine. I would never buy anything from half the stores because it's too expensive, but I guess somebody is buying.<p>I go there for the Lego and Apple Stores, and restaurants (Cheesecake factory isn't treeeible)<p>It's the smaller, lower end malls that are dead. Their anchor stores are either long gone (Sears) or on deaths door (Macy's, JC Penny), food courts are empty.<p>They look like flea markets inside. Random junk stores, kiosks...
It's interesting that shopping malls are still very popular in other countries. Hong Kong, for instance, is practically one big mall. In, e.g., Poland, France, the Czech Republic, or Slovenia, just about every town has its own mall, and the larger cities often have malls within the tourist district itself. (e.g. this monster in the middle of Prague: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladium_(Prague)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladium_(Prague)</a> )<p>The decline of the mall is an American thing, and its reasons are not entirely clear. I'd say there are a few plausible contributing factors: Most other countries lack all-in-one stores like WalMart/Target. To put it gently, Americans are... well... larger than other people, and they're less likely to care about what they wear or how their clothes fit, so they're perhaps more likely to buy clothes online rather than in shops. America has a low-level crime/safety problem that most Asian/European countries do not.
American shoppers are fickle. They arrive in cars, they find the best deals, and they leave.<p>Malls are expensive. They have huge parking lots to accommodate vast numbers of customers but their prices aren’t competitive. Americans quietly took their business elsewhere (Walmart and Amazon).
I have no evidence other than my ideas but the decline of malls feels to coincide with the rise of the internet. A lot of the generic malls perhaps did not innovate on their business, they relied on big brands to lease out spaces in the mall, big brand food names to run spots in the food court and beyond maintaining the space, they did nothing to improve their circumstances. Before the rise of the internet it was an easy way to go an entertain your kids or yourself for a few hours, even if you did not buy anything. Now people entertain themselves with phones and enjoy shopping online.
Most of the times I go into a mall, I can find the same thing online with next day delivery, cheaper.
Rare are the occasions where I need something right now or when I need to see products in person.
In France (and other parts of Europe) it’s cool to walk around big malls because they are often in the center of cities so there is public transports with exits inside the mall. And it’s easy to go to other parts of the city right after.
Driving specifically to a mall ? No way I’ll do that more than a couple times a year, a waste of time.
Nostalgia alert! If you enjoyed this topic, check out these two videos and their comments sections:<p>Sounds Of The Department Store 1979
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ZyCX1aRZY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ZyCX1aRZY</a><p>More Sounds Of The Department Store
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQlIxbLvTr8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQlIxbLvTr8</a>
Somehow related... I have noticed recently (note: in Poland) that brands shops are starting to price some items (especially clothes) in the shop to be cheaper than on-line. And the difference is quite significant.<p>I believe that there are two factors.<p>One, the law in Poland allows to return any item purchased online in 15 days without giving any reason. I can imagine that for shoes, clothes there is a pretty big turnover which is costly (delivery costs, return handling, repacking, etc.).<p>The second one is that when customer is in the shop, it is way easier to offer accessories, offer to buy something else, etc.<p>Curious, if this going to be some trend...
One of my biggest frustrations with going to brick and mortar stores is getting all the way there to find that they don't have stock of whatever I'm looking for. Sure, I can call ahead or check their website, but often that is not actually reliable. If I'm already on their website I might as well just order it online.