Opinion What are the REAL reasons why indoor Malls started closing?

Rhood

Rhood

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My top 2 reasons are the global recession & global covid.
Anytime there's a financial crisis, banks restrict loans & create high interest rates, consumer spending becomes nonexistent due to people losing jobs, and businesses stop hiring.
It's a domino effect.

When I asked this question to friends or family members, they just believe that indoor malls close because outdoor malls are better.

What's your opinion?
 
Rhood said:
My top 2 reasons are the global recession & global covid.
Anytime there's a financial crisis, banks restrict loans & create high interest rates, consumer spending becomes nonexistent due to people losing jobs, and businesses stop hiring.
It's a domino effect.

When I asked this question to friends or family members, they just believe that indoor malls close because outdoor malls are better.

What's your opinion?
Click to expand...
i think the most obvious reason is pressure from online retail. Remember when best buy had huge sections of music CDs and DVDs. i don't even think they have a music section anymore. Virtually no one buys CDs anymore.

I think social media has had an impact as well. When i was a kid the mall was a place to get away from parents and hang out with your friends, eat at the food court, and just waste your day. Now it seems like kids would rather spend their time somewhere else. Maybe it's easier for them to organize a more fun thing to do with access to the internet and social media?

It is pretty sad seeing the state of indoor malls today. I went to one of the bigger ones in my city recently and i think a good 40% of the storefronts were closed.
 
Another reason is that people have less disposable income because of the shrinking middleclass, inflation due to corporations price gouging.
 
Internet shopping played the biggest part in its downfall. Convenience is king. Adding in quick shipping, and it's a wrap.

Also, though I cannot speak for it nationally, a big part why they are closing around here is everyone goes to the nice outlet malls they built. People still want to go out to shop occasionally, but they want those nice savings too.
 
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After my local mall lost Sears and Radio Shack, there's no reason really for me to go to the mall. There's a Barnes & Noble, but these days I just use the Libby app, and whatever I can't find on the app, I just order from Amazon.


machidafan99 said:
They are being converted into FEMA camps.
Click to expand...

They already did that with the Wal-Marts. Remember Jade Helm?
 
AWilder said:
i think the most obvious reason is pressure from online retail. Remember when best buy had huge sections of music CDs and DVDs. i don't even think they have a music section anymore. Virtually no one buys CDs anymore.

I think social media has had an impact as well. When i was a kid the mall was a place to get away from parents and hang out with your friends, eat at the food court, and just waste your day. Now it seems like kids would rather spend their time somewhere else. Maybe it's easier for them to organize a more fun thing to do with access to the internet and social media?

It is pretty sad seeing the state of indoor malls today. I went to one of the bigger ones in my city recently and i think a good 40% of the storefronts were closed.
Click to expand...

Another smaller reason is that consumer tastes in shopping centers has changed. Instead of the fully indoor, air-conditioned mall, a lot of open air shopping centers have opened up.

Now that I'm thinking about it, open air places in general are a lot more popular now. Tons of bars and restaurants have patios or some sort of outdoor place facing the street, with open spaces. These were very rare in the 90s and early 2000s.
 
Malls are such a dumb business model.

You literally have an operator that needs to make money before any of the actual retailers can start to make money in an environment where you're already way behind online shopping in terms of convenience.

Shops are still useful because you want to try on clothes, try out products, get them right there and then, etc, but the overheads now have to be as low as possible and a mall by its very design flies in the face of modern shopping.

On the plus side, where malls decimated high streets, we're a little bit more likely to go back to local conveniences going forward. That's a good thing all round.
 
Malls were dying way before COVID. Biggest reasons IMO are the rise of online shopping. There's no need to go to a mall for specialty items. And luxury outlet stores. These have mainly been outdoor and are usually better than department stores.
 
The internet is a huge reason most stores have been closing.
I don't feel like Covid has anything to do with it since it's been happening for over a decade.

There's always a recession in one way or another so I don't think that's it either sir.
Rhood said:
My top 2 reasons are the global recession & global covid.
Anytime there's a financial crisis, banks restrict loans & create high interest rates, consumer spending becomes nonexistent due to people losing jobs, and businesses stop hiring.
It's a domino effect.

When I asked this question to friends or family members, they just believe that indoor malls close because outdoor malls are better.

What's your opinion?
Click to expand...
 
I don't have fond memories of indoor malls, unlike many. Even as a teenager I cared about value, and malls were full of clothes that would not last given their commonly low thread count

Mall food was mostly trash also

EB Games was good, it's eventual replacement GameStop was trash

The rest of the stores were for females
 
From mail order to department stores and malls, and back to online shopping.
Online shopping beats the convenience of the "one stop shop" and home entertainment killed the cinema, arcades and bowling alleys.
 
Answer 1 : People are lazier and online shopping is easier.

Answer 2 : Younger people are less social and not like interacting with others, including store staff, whereas prior generations saw the Mall, as one of a few ideal places to hang out and socialize.

Those two factors lead to Mall death, and it started well before covid.
 
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