Are Shopping Malls a Dying Breed?

Retail therapy doesn't quite feel the same when you don't have shopping malls full of great stores, great brands, lots of crowds and lots of action. And yet, as lovers of the great American export that is the shopping mall idea notice, the idea is on its way out. Everywhere you go, shopping malls present more empty storefronts than filled-in and lighted stores. Vacancies at shopping malls have doubled over the last four years ever since the recession began.

A lot of the time, small retailers come to shopping malls only because the mall has already signed on a major brand like Sears or someone else. They usually have it in their lease that should the anchor store move out, that they can opt out of the lease too. Now that many anchor stores actually are shutting shop at shopping malls across the country, those smaller retailers can be expected to make use of their get-out-free clause. In short, you can expect lots of stores at shopping malls, and entire malls themselves at times, to close down.

This can be very bad news for everyone who is invested in retail in some way. When a shopping mall doesn't have as many stores, you don't really want to go there. People just go there for all the action there is to find in these places. When even a little bit of that is taken away, it can create a ripple effect. What with online stores growing at 15% every year, lots of consumers just think that they're better off looking at their computers than taking all the trouble to drive down to the mall.

Somehow, whatever they do, shopping malls need to keep customers coming in. The most common way they have doing that is to add food court upon food court. Studies show that when a shopping mall has great food, shoppers spend about 25% more there. They won't need to go home to eat, they won't need to go to feed a little one – food courts are good news for shopping malls, even if they are kind of a Band-Aid.

Another Band-Aid comes from signing celebrities on. Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, John Travolta – shopping malls will sign these famous stars to come and pump a little flesh and bring a little glamor to their shopping mall. But of course, this can't be an everyday thing. And so, they go with entertainment that can actually pull people in every single day of the week – they build swimming pools, ice-skating rinks and amusement parks and movie theaters – anything to get people to come. Once they're there, they're sure that they'll spend something.

In short, shopping mall owners can no longer just rely on being landlords to retail businesses. They need to actually turn into entertainers themselves.