Question

what change do you think should be done to revitalize the ailing malls

Answer 1

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Not every mall feels the pain equally. The Class A malls are solid but they deteriorate when you get down to the class B and C. It's a matter of the healthy going on being fine and the not so nice continues degrading at a faster pace than before. Nonetheless, one factor adds up to the increasing retail vacancy rates and diminishing retail traffic–a potential death trap for malls big and small, good or bad. No-one is immune from the broader consumer market macro-trends. The indoor mall is an anachronism which will continue to fail as it is detached from the way people want to live their lives. The most important cultural phenomenon affecting shopping nowadays is that the age-old model where customers had to go to the store to buy something has been eliminated in just the last ten years or so, coinciding with Amazon's rise and driven by Bezos ' sharp strategic vision. Back in the day and anytime you needed or wanted it, it wasn't really so long ago that you had to go to the store to find something. Sure, there were other options, such as catalogues, but retail stores essentially had a monopoly on customers. No more. Now the choice to go to the supermarket is a decision to go shopping because it's cheaper, simpler and much more comfortable digitally to purchase something - anything. As a consequence, for an actual shopping retailer in the store, the problems malls face are larger than that. Malls need to do more to tempt shoppers to come. We bear the maximum load and build the environments customers desire. Some malls need to give people something to do, then they're going to shop. Yet shopping doesn't have to be the case.

When Cowen's 3C's refer to one store, how much more will it relate to a retailer set, i.e. malls.

Render things easy — Most of the people are busy. Men are stressed out. Two-career families are popular, especially among the more prosperous households who have to invest the most money. No one wants to add something else to their crowded' do' list. And most of the time that's income. Many consumers can pass off their energy to save money, but for mall stores, the wealthy, the most desirable buyers are far more likely to pay to save cash. And they are increasingly able to do both simultaneously thanks to the Internet. This convenience factor describes the growing popularity of the outdoor shopping model where shoppers can drive up and park in the vicinity of the shop they want to go to, get what they want, and spend the rest of their time strolling around the center to find and try other items. Indoor malls allow shoppers to find parking spaces in cramped decks, access just a few exits, and follow lengthy, sometimes complex routes that include maps to find what they want. They just aren't easy.The success of Walmart with the "car pickup" for purchases made before coming to the store is an example of one way for shoppers to eliminate friction.

Curate for relevance — The proper mix of tenants is critical for malls. If we've been told anything else by the shopping crisis, it's that malls need to be specially designed for the local market. Now, if you go to an indoor mall in Ohio, Texas or California, you'll see the same range of shops essentially. That is ridiculous. The physical store is both a customer acquisition platform for these digital-native products, and encourages recognition and access to the company.

Creating a community culture — to me this C-Culture — is the crux of the challenge and the biggest mall opportunity. Chen describes it as the need for a mall to "become part of the community's fabric again" and not just a place to shop and buy. Shopping's potential is families, and dreaming about what it entails for consumers to be part of a shopping community. Malls must again become important locally in their neighborhoods. In the future the popularity of shopping and malls will be about men. What about historical societies, libraries, museums? What about Community group meeting halls? What about career centres where community colleges and training programs are willing to train the next generation of people in the city for careers, like service jobs in malls? What about government agency offices and elected officials, where members of the community can come and be heard? Malls certainly can not command rates for these community service centers like they do for retail, but such places would knit the mall into the community in a way that would help people and ultimately help their retail tenants.

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