Posted on 04/17/2009 9:37:16 AM PDT by WVKayaker
Oh, heavans, no. The malls will stay open, under new management, as it were.
When the welfare checks bounce, the country is going to burn...
I have been castigated online for seeking to make money. I am going direct to the customer, like Fuller Brush. But, my headquarters will be in a local Mall. I can get exposure, while also getting some cheap rent. They are eager to rent space.
People still shop at malls, but most are just browsing the goods! I went to the Apple store to look at laptops. I will buy it online from a discounter. The Apple store is in ...the mall! Some just have to have it NOW!
I suspect it hasn’t been Tyson’s dragging them down.
For tips on investing in Baltimore, watch reruns of “The Wire.”
Where once a mall would have two anchor stores now four seems to be the minimum. The net effect is to make them dependent on those four stores. If any one of them hit a bump for any reason the mall is hurting.
Most people don’t realize how many people’s jobs depend on retail. Our store in KOP (the Gulph Road mall) is 5100 square feet and employs over 40 people full time.
I think this is going to be changing, at least as far as bricks-and-mortar stores for style items like clothing and housewares go. I rarely go to clothing stores anymore, other than thrift stores, because anything I want I can get faster, and often cheaper online. For year's I would go into the department stores at KoP looking for things like mock turtlenecks. They always had plenty of them, but rarely had any in size S -- a few Ms, piles of L and XLs, but often no Ss at all or just a couple in the most hideous color. This literally went on for years, and always the same pattern. I began to wonder what planet their merchandise ordering people were on. Did they NEVER notice that all the S sizes sold out quickly, and tons of the Ls and XLs always ended up as clearance items? I don't even bother looking anymore -- I just order whatever I want online.
FYI - The Mall in Columbia opened in 1971 and Tyson's Galleria opened in 1988.
We opened in Columbia in 2005 in what may have been a new wing. To my knowledge there have been none of the problems there that we’ve seen on older malls.
Fewer malls in this country would be a good thing. Seems like here in DFW there is a mall on every block.
Thanks for the info. I’ll be sure to stop by and see it next time I’m up that way.
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