Why have malls gone out of style in world over?

Why have malls gone out of style in Indian Metros?

Why?

High rents – The rents forced many of the stores and smaller restaurants to close or move elsewhere. They weren’t replaced and the mall’s offerings grew more sparse. Fewer offerings = Fewer people.

The cities grew away from them – Both of the shopping malls in the mid-sized city close to my home are in areas where the growth no longer occurs. The city has grown away from them and adding better shopping elsewhere.

The big box stores beat them up – The two largest box store chain (which I don’t need to name) basically ate the malls proverbial “lunches.” Why go to the mall when you could go to them? Especially if you needed groceries, as well.

The anchor stores are failing – Sears anchored a staggering number of malls and it’s almost out of business. Macy’s , JCPenney’s and a host of regional chains have failed or are failing. Without those anchor stores, the malls are finished.

Gen X’ers and Millennials don’t have their parents money – If you are $60–100k in the hole with student loan, then the LAST thing that you are thinking of is going to the mall and dropping a few hundred over the weekend. You can’t afford it, and so you don’t do it. Malls need free-spending consumers and there aren’t many of them left,

Malls worked at a time when the economy was different and the country was different.

Things changed and the malls didn’t.

This is a big and complex question with lots of factors:

The internet. Yes. It’s a thing. It’s hurt a lot of retailers. It’s really hurt s few classes of “mall favorites”. The record stores, for example have been murdered by the internet.

Many of these malls are leveraged to the hilt. They have a second mortgage, and a seventy seventh mortgage. They could not cut their leasing prices and pay the bills.

Fewer teens are driving. The mall was once a popular hangout. Now they have snapchat, but no drivers license.

Some malls became increasingly strict about teens “hanging out” and kicked them out… Which is a great way to alienate future customers.

Some malls didn’t kick out unruly teens… And scared off paying customers. (You may note that these two are a contradiction. This is also a problem.)

Many of the customers of malls have split into two socio-economic groups. One of them went to wal-mart, and one went upscale. The “middle class” that shopped at malls has never fully recovered from the great recession.

Some malls became somewhat overrun with crime, though this issue was not universal.

(It’s often blamed, but this doesn’t really hold water).

Strip malls and various other retail destinations were cheaper and easier to build, and stripped away customers from larger malls, especially as they were often more convenient. (Literally everything I used to go to the mall for is both closer and more convenient for me today at another destination).

Will shopping malls ever have their glory days back?

No, they won’t.

Why?

Online shopping – This is big business, and it’s only going to get bigger. There’s no way that most shopping malls can compete with online retailers who don’t have the brick and mortar and employee costs that traditional stores did.

An aging population – Malls need families and children to patronize to remain open. An older population on a fixed income makes fewer purchases and definitely would only rarely go to the mall.

The movie industry is changing – A movie theater was often an anchor for many malls. It lured in people who then might have gone browsing or shopping. As the number of movie theaters decreases due to online streaming, the malls that they anchored will first suffer, and then close.

The giants are falling, or have fallen – The huge chain stores that anchored malls are going away, or are already gone. Sears, Carsons, and dozens of other stores have shuttered, while JCPenney’s is going to be de-listed by the New York Stock Exchange and Macy’s is nearly on life support. While some of these could be replaced by smaller or regional chains, even those retailers are hurting. The malls depended upon big stores anchoring a collection of smaller retailers, and that’s no longer the way the retail business is going.

Infrastructure costs are going to kill many of them – Most malls were built from the late 1960s until the mid 1990s. They require huge investments in their infrastructure and the money to do that just isn’t there. A mall near me tore down its Sears, and apparently someone “forgot” that asbestos was used during its construction. It’s demolition costs almost tripled as a result. Malls are old and they are in need of major interior and exterior maintenance.

Malls were always a short term prospect as when the Baby Boomers reached their dotage, they were unlikely to travel to them for shopping even if online sales hadn’t taken a huge chunk of their business. We are likely seeing the “middle of the end” of the shopping mall