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America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

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Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#261

Post by fsloth »

gbacon wrote: post #197
sanderjd wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a sociologist, but my feeling is that malls are just a last resort place for young people to socialize that is unstructured and free of charge. That is: there isn't really anywhere else to go be with your friends without paying for the privilege, that isn't organized by adults (like school sports or church groups for instance). When I was growing up, we had the mall and we had parking lots, and the latter was…

A recent video called “Why The Kids Need Stranger Things”[0] made exactly this point about the nostalgia of the Netflix series and how malls were a symbol of free-range kids[1]. Circumstances have changed so much that the creators assert Stranger Things could not be set in the present day. [0]: https://youtu.be/qHl-BQXYg3s [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-range_parenting

That's so weird. We in northern europe have no problem in letting our kids roam (Finland, but I presume the situation is similar in at least scandinavia).

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#262

Post by tdburn »

3pt14159 wrote: post #238
cwbrandsma wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing completely, but your location might be influencing your answer. I live in the northern portion of the USA, we get freezing winters and blistering summers. Come mid-winter...I am not going downtown to walk around outside, we don't hang out outside (unless we are talking winter sports, and then FULLY clothed). In summer, there needs to be shade. Fall and spring, we get wet. But really, it seems like…

North Americans are too soft. I live in Toronto and it's wonderful to have nice streets that you can walk and bike on, even at ±30C.

Peach Brother! ;)

I used to be much more resilient but now would prefer a warmer climate, bring on global warming!

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#263

Post by phirschybar »

Full disclosure: I am the co-founder and lead developer at https://www.locally.com. We do exactly what I describe below and we're seeing great results. People want to buy from their local stores. They just need the modern paths to purchase: BOPIS (buy online pick up in store), local delivery, and the knowledge oh what is in stock nearby.

IMHO, the real path forward for retail is to get their in-stock goods in front of online shoppers via their brands' web sites, their own web site and local marketplace sites. Ecommerce is not the solution because nobody can expect to compete with Amazon.

Brands are learning the hard way that they cannot go D2C (direct to consumer), nor make a profit off selling on Amazon. They HAVE to support their network of retailers: small and large.

Yes, the day of reckoning for retail is coming. But it won't be an apocalypse. 90+% of retail transactions still occur in a brick and mortar store and people love to shop. Most retailers (and brands) just don't have the data and tools (yet) to drive traffic to stores. They're still figuring out the Amazon problem.

We're getting there though.

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#264

Post by taway_1212 »

jogjayr wrote: post #220
cwbrandsma wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing completely, but your location might be influencing your answer. I live in the northern portion of the USA, we get freezing winters and blistering summers. Come mid-winter...I am not going downtown to walk around outside, we don't hang out outside (unless we are talking winter sports, and then FULLY clothed). In summer, there needs to be shade. Fall and spring, we get wet. But really, it seems like…

Completely agree that weather makes a huge difference to how much you enjoy strolling outdoors over being in a mall. My main complaint about malls is how _loud_ they are: visually and auditory-ly (someone please tell me what the right word is). Malls are crowded, adorned in bright, garish colors, filled with stale food court food smells. There is very little seating other than at food courts, water fountains are hidd…

I think it's just that the things you want don't translate into a good return on investment for the owners and so they don't get implemented. (i.e. customers would like them, but it would not translate into a increase in shopping large enough to actually justify the investment from the owner's point of view).

My wider (and a bit tangential/ranty) theory is that the most tacky, tasteless and lacking self-control customers are actually the most profitable, hence businesses generally tend to pander to them. It's just much easier to extract unreasonable amounts of money from someone who's unreasonable (an adult child basically) than from someone sensible and reasonable, so for example us techies are not the target for a lot of companies.

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#265

Post by pryelluw »

nihonde wrote: post #115
pascalxus wrote: post #60

Malls hold no interest for me whatsoever. There's nothing there worthwhile, other than employment. Malls have nothing: no libraries, no Good Cafes, no places to hang out, no parks, no museums, no zoos, limited live music, no outdoors. And the few things it does have: like some book stores and places to eat, are all engineered to get you in and out and back to the Mall's singular focus: Spend, spend, spend: shop till…

Aeon mall in Nagoya, Japan[1] was my primary daily grocery and pharmacy for years. Aeon's format is pretty much the same as most suburban American malls, but they seem to run a tighter ship and do a better job of vertical integration. (I used to marvel at how insanely mirror-clean the floors were in a place where probably a few tens of thousands of people tread daily.) Prices for things like groceries are not the low…

I like how the whole website is different if you select English as your language.

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#266

Post by wutbrodo »

unabst wrote: post #163
Balgair wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SM is loud and very touristy. Buskers are allowed amps for their guitars and I can't count the number of languages spoken. It's more of an airport terminal than anything approaching 'local'. God have mercy on you at the pier. I'd go Culver City, as a better 'local' kinda thing, but even then you need to get up to SB to really stand a chance of a quiet coffee on the street. > Parking is wack though. Literally all of L…

Even Beverly Hills has great parking. The major bottleneck downtown is parking right now and has been for a while. SM moved fast to build multiple parking structures... and that's where all the foot traffic comes from. Not sure why DTLA is so nonchalant about this. Don't see any construction whatsoever.

> Not sure why DTLA is so nonchalant about this. Don't see any construction whatsoever.

Presumably because LA finally managed to make a section of the city livable and they don't want to hasten its demise. Parking has pretty massive costs for quality of life and the livability of a city.

LA is just in a weird transition point right now, where even a furious pace of transit building isn't going to remake the car-centric infrastructure overnight.

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#267

Post by efields »

allenbrunson wrote: post #108
irrational wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you still shop in brick and mortar stores? Other than food (groceries and restaurants) and sometimes clothing, I haven't shopped in a brick and mortar store in so long that I can't even remember when was the last time. It's just so easy to buy things online, even small one off purchases. The other day I needed some AAA batteries so I just hopped on Amazon and ordered them and they showed up a day later. I probably…

competing anecdata: if i just needed some batteries, i wouldn't use amazon for that. i already get too many boxes from them, which accumulate as unwanted guests in every corner of my house, so i try to consolidate small orders. and there is some additional friction there: making sure all my orders have been delivered, not allowing boxes to hang out on the porch too long in case they might get stolen, etc. far more li…

As awesome as the 1-click button is for getting products to your door, box fatigue is a real thing. Lately I just add products to my cart until one of those additions become pressing, then I review my cart and purchase. Half the items in there I wind up relegating to the "Save for Later" list.

Honestly, it also provides the thrill of impulse shopping without the guilt or monetary expense. Most of the "save for later" items never get ordered, or I realize they're part of a bigger project I need to make time for.

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#268

Post by tspike »

taway_1212 wrote: post #264
jogjayr wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree that weather makes a huge difference to how much you enjoy strolling outdoors over being in a mall. My main complaint about malls is how _loud_ they are: visually and auditory-ly (someone please tell me what the right word is). Malls are crowded, adorned in bright, garish colors, filled with stale food court food smells. There is very little seating other than at food courts, water fountains are hidd…

I think it's just that the things you want don't translate into a good return on investment for the owners and so they don't get implemented. (i.e. customers would like them, but it would not translate into a increase in shopping large enough to actually justify the investment from the owner's point of view). My wider (and a bit tangential/ranty) theory is that the most tacky, tasteless and lacking self-control custo…

There's no way the returns on investing in making the mall a pleasurable place to hang out in the short term outweigh the costs, but if people depended on malls as part of their area's social fabric, I doubt they would be facing this kind of longer-term decline.

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#269

Post by greeneggs »

astura wrote: post #182
onion2k wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spend, spend, spend: shop till you drop mentality. If you think malls are only about consumerism then you've misunderstood a big part of their appeal for a lot of people. Young people and groups of friends don't go to the mall on their own. Malls merge consumerism with social activity - they're for people who enjoy shopping with their friends. If that's not you then fair enough, but don't disparage malls simply becau…

How young? Many malls have banned people under 18 unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. This practice started around 10 years ago. Just in case anyone doubts me: http://www.parenting.com/news-break/why-your-teen-getting-ba... >Up to 80 malls across the United States enforce a curfew or escort policy for teenagers I was still looking young in 2008 despite being well into my 20s and that's when I got IDed at a ma…

> Up to 80 malls across the United States enforce a curfew or escort policy for teenagers

If you follow the link, the more accurate quote is [1]

> Close to 80 malls in the U.S. have some type of curfew or escort policy regarding teenagers

Having a policy is different from enforcing it, and a curfew policy is quite different from an escort policy, so who knows what this really means?

Time writes, citing Credit Suisse, that there are about 1100 malls in the US today [2], so this might still be fairly rare.

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/teens-are-getting-banned-from-mal... [2] http://time.com/4865957/death-and-life-shopping-mall/

Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

#270

Post by VLM »

_ea1k wrote: post #178
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At our local mall, there's a sign warning that under 18 aren't allowed without adults. They also removed much of what would attract teens and that age group. And many of the "older person stores" are ridiculously priced. Amazon, Walmart online, Aliexpress, and others are cheaper. Malls are full of expensive stuff, not very good stuff, and caters to nobody in particular. I know for us, it's because "Payless Shoes" tha…

I agree. It feels like a lot of malls have basically optimized themselves for a customer base that is not really sustainable.

Mall security is what is unsustainable. I'm old by HN standards gen-X and I grew up with mall security hating me. Now mall security has under 18 kids arrested, which is worse. The point is for decades of formative years "the mall is that place where they hate me because of who I am". So its understandable that now that I'm in their prime demographic (older, financially well off) that I have no interest in going there.

You'd have to be older than gen-x to remember malls favorably as a teen. The place to socialize is/was high school sports in (ahem, under) the stands, and darkly lit movie theaters. Since the 80s, which is a long time ago, trying to hang out at the mall will get you kicked out by rentacops or arrested.

Another problem is the dead mall death spiral has no backwards movement, can only ratchet toward death. The closest mall to me went 95% womens clothing stores a long time ago and is now on the march toward having its sixth athletic shoe store. Its a one way path to foreclosure, like a diode action only moving one way. I don't buy womens clothes, so other than taking my wife or daughter there, its already dead to me...

Its interesting that when I was a kid the mall provided the novelty of everything under one roof. Then big box stores happened and there is no appeal to lots of little box stores under one roof when I can just go to Target or Walmart. Walmart today is the early 80s mall of my youth.

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