Shopping malls not only provided access to the latest fashions and cds but also gave the teens of America a place to hang out and socialize. Now they socialize on Instagram and thru Snapchat. Parents are nervous to allow their teens to go to malls alone in the face of increasing violent crimes and public shootings. Parents themselves have no reason to go to malls when the option of shopping online from the comfort of their home is far more appealing. Any hour, any day, bra less and often cheaper prices wins any day over fighting rude crowds, dealing with over-zealous sales people and browsing thru all the merchandise to find what you want.
While many argue that this trend is killing jobs, I think it is important to examine the quality of jobs that is is destroying versus creating. Most mall retail jobs are part-time (often with very few hours per employee), minimum wage positions. To abolish the actual store and resort to online only sales you are therefore creating need for a distribution center, which more often pays higher wages and tends to employ full time. The increased deliveries increases demands for truck drivers, also another higher paying position. Without the overhead of store expenses and the steep cost of leasing a space in a mall, companies can lower prices of merchandise, making it more affordable to the general public.
As far as these sprawling malls built decades ago, their management companies need to get together for a pow-wow on how to stay relevant in the face of changing habits. Take a hint from Destiny USA and make a trip to the mall about entertainment or even necessity rather than based on consumerism. We want places to entertain our families, extraordinary food experiences, places to go for date night. Indoor playgrounds or trampoline parks, sit down restaurants that are not fast food joints, bowling alleys or comedy clubs. Bring in a gym, a dance studio, doctors or dentists or any other office that we can't get the service online. I am far more likely to stop in a store at the mall if I was already there because I needed to take my kids someplace to burn off energy.
Take a look at Watertown- the Salmon Run Mall. We have retail stores exploding in this area. We have restaurants galore. We have very little entertainment options, especially during our long stretch of winter. We need a place the kids can go to burn off energy. Something so fun, they beg to go back. We need entertainment options to draw in tourists to stay in all these hotels being built. Despite all the food choices Watertown offers, I think the worst move the mall has made was not renewing the lease for Barkeater's Cafe. People want non-chain, hometown sit down restaurants to frequent. Barkeater's was a reason to visit the mall. Sure we have Skewed now (which I do love) but it's far more compact and not as cozy and inviting as Barkeater's was.
Survival needs to trump greed and perhaps it is time to consider lowering rents in order to draw in other options to occupy now empty spaces. Less money coming in is better than no money coming in. Should the malls not heed such advice they will join the hoards of vacant malls that now sit abandoned across this country, the forgotten playgrounds of the past.
