The Decline of Shopping Malls

[GCrites]

Glad to know we have moved onto the exaggerated, something happens on extremely rare occasion by a few shoppers but let's act as if it involved every mall everywhere with everyone at all times.

That kind of activity on Black Friday is way down as compared to say, 2008. We used to open at 6 with 3 people working and had to be let into the store by Security since the throngs were so thick. Now I (and many smaller stores I know) only have one person on staff until 9-10 AM. It doesn't get crazy until later in the day now. We have Summer Saturdays where we sell more than Black Friday.

[CtrlAltDel]

Glad to know we have moved onto the exaggerated, something happens on extremely rare occasion by a few shoppers but let's act as if it involved every mall everywhere with everyone at all times.

That kind of activity on Black Friday is way down as compared to say, 2008. We used to open at 6 with 3 people working and had to be let into the store by Security since the throngs were so thick. Now I (and many smaller stores I know) only have one person on staff until 9-10 AM. It doesn't get crazy until later in the day now. We have Summer Saturdays where we sell more than Black Friday.

It helps that many places are open on Thanksgiving evening too. It spreads out the madness a bit.

[Pete from Boston]

Glad to know we have moved onto the exaggerated, something happens on extremely rare occasion by a few shoppers but let's act as if it involved every mall everywhere with everyone at all times.

That kind of activity on Black Friday is way down as compared to say, 2008. We used to open at 6 with 3 people working and had to be let into the store by Security since the throngs were so thick. Now I (and many smaller stores I know) only have one person on staff until 9-10 AM. It doesn't get crazy until later in the day now. We have Summer Saturdays where we sell more than Black Friday.

It helps that many places are open on Thanksgiving evening too. It spreads out the madness a bit.

And that online is cheaper and easier, if you can wait.

[ARMOURERERIC]

I lived in the Hunting Heights section of Newport News from 1991-1996 and since I used to walk alot to city hall, I started my own study of what was originally downtown before it became an urban ruin.  It amazed me that in a short 2 years, downtown Newport News went from the largest downtown in Virginia to a dead ruin, mostly due to Newmarket Fair, and then how fast Newmarket Fair succumbed to Patrick Henry.

Your description of how Newport News used to look is really interesting to me.
Was this just general suburban migration, or was it exacerbated by the military scaling back in the early 90's, and/or the economic conditions then? That seems to be longer than most other downtowns lasted nationwide.

I will give more insights later but 2 factors I now of was:

The decline of housewives coming into town with their shipyard worker husband and shopping all day.

A secret agenda on the part of Newport News Shipbuilding wherin they became landlocked because of downtown and decided to accellerate it's demise, take over the land, and turn it into a brownfield light industrail zone.  Which, now that they have taken over, some of the newly constructed facilities are pretty decent.

[GCrites]

Glad to know we have moved onto the exaggerated, something happens on extremely rare occasion by a few shoppers but let's act as if it involved every mall everywhere with everyone at all times.

That kind of activity on Black Friday is way down as compared to say, 2008. We used to open at 6 with 3 people working and had to be let into the store by Security since the throngs were so thick. Now I (and many smaller stores I know) only have one person on staff until 9-10 AM. It doesn't get crazy until later in the day now. We have Summer Saturdays where we sell more than Black Friday.

For example, today we sold more than we did last Black Friday. This despite the fact that we are still depleted of stock from Xmas, wintertime and tax time. It takes us a while to build up our stock again since people don't sell us as much stuff in the winter.

[cl94]

Glad to know we have moved onto the exaggerated, something happens on extremely rare occasion by a few shoppers but let's act as if it involved every mall everywhere with everyone at all times.

That kind of activity on Black Friday is way down as compared to say, 2008. We used to open at 6 with 3 people working and had to be let into the store by Security since the throngs were so thick. Now I (and many smaller stores I know) only have one person on staff until 9-10 AM. It doesn't get crazy until later in the day now. We have Summer Saturdays where we sell more than Black Friday.

For example, today we sold more than we did last Black Friday. This despite the fact that we are still depleted of stock from Xmas, wintertime and tax time. It takes us a while to build up our stock again since people don't sell us as much stuff in the winter.

Not surprising at all. People don't buy a lot on Black Friday. They go for one item that is on sale and, if the item they want isn't in stock, they leave without buying anything.

[GCrites]

Yeah we don't have "sales". When you only have 1, 2 or 3 max of most of your items in stock ever it is hard to have "sales".

[Brandon]

Thought this might be apt for this thread:
Northland mall tunnels reveal their secrets

Countless shoppers visited metro Detroit's Northland Center mall during its 61 years of business.

Yet only a few ever saw the elaborate system of service tunnels that still exists beneath the nation's first regional shopping mall, which closed last April and could face demolition as early as this summer.

The underground tunnels opened with the mall in 1954 and were primarily used for making truck deliveries to Northland's stores, but also for storage, workshop space and even nuclear bomb shelters.

There's a bunch of photographs as well.

[mgk920]

Thought this might be apt for this thread:
Northland mall tunnels reveal their secrets

Countless shoppers visited metro Detroit's Northland Center mall during its 61 years of business.

Yet only a few ever saw the elaborate system of service tunnels that still exists beneath the nation's first regional shopping mall, which closed last April and could face demolition as early as this summer.

The underground tunnels opened with the mall in 1954 and were primarily used for making truck deliveries to Northland's stores, but also for storage, workshop space and even nuclear bomb shelters.

There's a bunch of photographs as well.

Fascinating, especially that message from a tenant employee on the mall's final day.

Mike

[GCrites]

The mall where my store is located doesn't have much in the way of secrets having been built in 1987, being one story (including the anchors) and under 1,000,000 sq. ft. However, when I visit the malls where a friend's stores are located and use the service halls and storage areas in the course of doing business with him it is clear that a lot of older, larger malls have all kinds of unusual things going on -- especially ones that have been expanded multiple times over the years.

[SignGeek101]

This is older news now, but still relevant:

http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/new-outlet-mall-coming-soon-to-winnipeg-1.2581403

It will be done by May 2017. I went by the other day, and the basic structure is starting to come together. I may get some pics later.

[GCrites]

Outlet malls are highly overrated.