Posted on 10/29/2019 8:28:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In an interview given roughly twenty years ago when Amazon was largely a peddler of books, CDs, and DVDs, founder Jeff Bezos observed to a reporter that his nascent company would never replace the shopping center experience. Bezos plainly saw how shopping centers and malls gave people a happy feeling of community, of a physical place to go, and he knew Amazon couldn’t recreate it.
Bezos’s acknowledgement of Amazon’s limits proved a window into the company’s future. Amid rising pessimism about the future of bricks & mortar retail, Bezos is an optimist. He is investing many billions in the physical shopping locations that he’s long stressed Amazon can’t recreate. Market statistics support what Bezos is doing. Popular as online shopping is, it still accounts for well under 10% of total retail sales.
Plainly eager for Amazon to be a player in the portion of retail that is largest, by far, Bezos is investing many billions as previously mentioned. There are Amazon bookstores, Amazon Go stores that will free the rushed buyer from checkout lines, there’s Amazon’s acquisition of grocery chain Whole Foods, and there will surely be many more endeavors. Irony of ironies, one of the few public business figures who openly expresses his belief that bricks & mortar retailing has a brilliant future is the man largely credited with destroying this allegedly “old economy” way of catering to acquisitive customers. Happily Bezos isn’t the only believer.
Indeed, to walk into a Lowe’s, or a Home Depot, or a Target, Walmart, or Costco location, is to be reminded that media members have a tendency to warp perception. Traditional retail, and big shopping centers are dead…unless we remember the myriad big store businesses that continue to thrive. It’s not that old retail is dying as much as it’s rapidly changing, and in the process leaving those stuck in the past behind. This is the stuff of economic dynamism. The future rarely resembles the past in places where there’s growth.
Figure that the malls of the past included video rental stores, Orange Julius fast food outlets, and Radio Shacks. The previous truth requires consideration as some in our midst parrot the popular view that retail is over with, that shopping malls will never again be relevant again, that Toys ‘R Us, Circuit City and Sears failed not because they were no longer meeting the needs of their customers, but because of the “internet.” Conventional wisdom is yet again unacceptable. In a dynamic economy that which is stationary is a sitting duck, just waiting to be put out of business. It’s a reminder that investment is the driver of economic growth, not consumption. Investment is the process whereby the future is rushed into the present. Happily it’s happening with shopping malls.
As the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend about American Dream, “the most expensive U.S. mall ever built,” the shopping center is being re-imagined in exciting ways. Investors are still willing to back what aims to be different with enormous sums of money. American Dream will surely be different. Consider the Journal’s description of this new kind of shopping center:
“On one end, you can glimpse multiple ski lifts for a 16-story indoor ski hill, the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Across a professional size ice rink is the hemisphere’s biggest enclosed amusement park, the 8-acre Nickelodeon Universe – a colorful jumble of roller coaster tracks and rides. Next to that is the DreamWorks Waterpark, the largest indoor water park in North America, with a wave pool and 40 slides.”
So this is the new shopping center; one bereft of shopping? No doubt the pessimists in our midst might assume just that since, you know, “Amazon is putting retailers out of business,” but reality is something else entirely. Though American Dream will be the first consumer shopping concept to “devote more space to entertainment, restaurants and theme-park rides” than to traditional retail, there will be copious amounts of the latter in what will, if successful, lure more than 40 million visitors per year to the historically unattractive Meadowlands area of New Jersey. According to the Journal, there will be more than 450 retail outlets that customers will be able to shop in when they’re not availing themselves of the endless entertainment options situated on the 90 acre site. Readers can rest assured these retailers aren’t taking space at the American Dream to lose money.
“When you walk through, we want you to be awed, jawdropped, inspired.” Those are the words of Don Ghermezian, creator of the American Dream, as told to the Journal. One imagines that it would be a joy to witness Ghermezian and Bezos talking retail. What amazing ideas must rush through their minds! Many of Ghermezian’s will be bad ones, Bezos has had a few, but the greatest entrepreneurs who really improve the world and our living standards fail with great regularity. We need people like Bezos and Ghermezian who, eager to try new things, reveal to us wants we never knew we had.
Ghermezian wants to awe us with an entirely new shopping experience, Bezos did with online shopping, continues to do so, plus with the Go stores he plainly aims to awe us in new ways. “Bricks & mortar retail is dead” is such a lazy, economically illiterate comment. It’s lazy because it presumes that businesses can remain vibrant by offering customers the same as ever. Sorry, but that’s never been true. Lest readers forget, few were demanding the world’s plenty with a click of a mouse before Bezos, and few were demanding a smaller amount of plenty through the then highly advanced catalogue before Sears made it possible. It’s economically illiterate because it presumes that consumption powers growth, as opposed to investment that enhances our consumptive ability all the while transforming how we consume. Economists are illiterate about the economy. Think about it.
Looking ahead, it’s exciting to imagine what’s next. Economically dynamic economies are defined by relentless replacement of the past, which means that Bezos and Ghermezian will eventually be replaced by the dreamers of tomorrow; that, or the businesses they created will be. We’re awestruck now, so imagine what the future holds if the economy remains free such that Amazon and American Dream are rendered yesterday’s news. Retail isn’t dead, rather what used to entertain us is. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Step 1) Go to the mall (or stand-alone store like Best Buy or Home Depot.)
Step 2) Look, touch, taste, test, and compare the items you are interested in purchasing.
Step 3) Choose the make/model/options that exactly fit your wants and needs.
Step 4) Whip out your phone and look up the chosen item on Amazon, compare pricing to the in-store item, then hit ‘Buy Now.’
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Or you could go to the counter, show them the Amazon price that is fulfilled by Amazon and they will price match on the spot and you don’t have to wait for the product and hope the UPS or USPS or FedEx people don’t destroy it in shipping.
I went to Home Depot this AM, spent a little over $100, and the biggest change in Home Depot is all check out is self service {except for contractors}.
At 8:15 AM there was well over 50 vehicles in the lot and there was a "He'p wanted" sign, start at $13.00/hour with benefits.
Earlier this week I checked Home Depot for a power washer, but bought one at Amazon, and saved $80.
If the product is the exact same, then the price becomes a main factor {along with availability}.
I think Best Buy became a store front for Amazon so much so that I think they price match with Amazon. I know I was guilty of some of that nothing can replace that hands on feeling except maybe free return with printable shipping labels.
Actually the alteration in indoor “malls” and department stores (true, not cruddy Wal-Mart etc) I see as just a correction
We are too obsessive, and fadish. Someone comes up with a concept and everyone - including businessmen - is all in.
Before the ‘net and on-line (catalog - that’s all it is, guys) shopping became truly big, mall were “dying” and new artificial “towns” with parking right at all the shops, or “outdoor malls” were growing. They’re STILL building these things.
It was a reaction to the PITA of needing something that is in ONE store INSIDE a mall far from parking. Suddenly, the old style of specialty stores right on the street front became logical again.
ALL types of shopping have their place. The challenge is to refrain from obsessing on one only to find 30 years later that maybe it isn’t the end-all be-all.
If we can reach a balance, it would be great. There won’t be as many “malls” (indoor), but they definitely have their use so there will still be malls. As there will also be main-street shops.
How is having to re-package an item and send it out in the mail great? I’ll never understand that. But then, state “free” or “cheap” and people go into feeding frenzy, just like to Wal-Mart and Target (killing the real department stores).
So you made the effort to GO to that store, then instead of getting said item IMMEDIATELY while there in front of you, which is verifiably in good shape, you order something that will take at least another several hours and could cost you extra in shipping. And even more time if it’s garbage and needs to be re-packaged and sent out again.
That’s beyond bizarre...
Well all I got is the Canadian perspective in a government town - meaning people have secure jobs.
Sears is gone. Kmart is gone. Target is gone. All we have is the Bay, and it is on its way out if you ever go there and see how empty it is. The anchor stores, outside of Walmart, are finished. Toys R Us here is half empty.
The malls are busy on the weekend. Outside of the weekend you might as well close shop because no one is here.
We have a Nintendo Switch and rarely buy new games at Best Buy. Instead we go to our local online used website and buy a game for $60. Play it. Sell it $45 a couple months later.
As a family of 6 we generally shop for clothes at Salvation Army.
Some of these dead malls are being turned into ecommerce distribution centers.
> Some of these dead malls are being turned into ecommerce distribution centers.
Our local mall was built in 1977 and started going downhill over a decade ago, but it refused to die till roughly 3 years ago. For the last years of it’s run it had the distinction of being home to over 30 store-front churches. It had a couple of holdouts in business right up to the end. I has occasion to visit one of the proprietors on a few occasions. Imagine an entire parking lot devoid of cars and one unmarked rear door that was apparently the only entryway into the ghost-town that looked like everybody had just walked away one day and never came back, which is in-fact exactly what happened.
The final irony in this story is that, in roughly a year’s time the mall was demolished and a giant Amazon distribution center took its place.
About 20 miles south of here one of the largest malls in this part of the country is meeting the same fate.
The only thing propping up malls is women’s clothing and accessories - many women need to try on / see it in the mirror before they buy, and that’s a pain with online shopping. Whoever figures out a way for women to reliably try on stuff online and view it in a virtual mirror will be the next Bezos and will drive the final nail into malls.
As opposed to finding receipt and standing in line for an hour to hope they have a record. Costco is easy compared to most outfits but is a half hour away. Anyway just put item back in box it came it and ask to return, they email you a shipping label and you either take it to nearest shipper or have them come by and pick it up.
Anyway sounds like you have never tried to use Amazon because they will have items that you will never find in any local store. If you want a rally odd item look on eBay. I actually only go to town for perishable food items everything else is delivered to my home and as a bonus I practically heat my house with the card board boxes.
You would be completely wrong about me. I use amazon and STARTED with eBay for what it was originally meant for, OLD stuff not returnable anyway. My husband is very big on amazon so we have plenty experience as a whole.
I do everything I can to avoid buying on-line though (again, that’s catalog purchasing, it’s nothing new). If I buy in real life I get it immediately and ensure it is in good shape so those alleged lines are moot. Even if I do return in person it is almost never a long wait, and no problem. My area is heavily populated so yes, we have many of each store around so no problem there, especially when it is on the way to work, etc. If one is a complete hermit who insists on staying in the house, yes, I guess that would be inconvenient.
Sorry, I don’t want to figure out how to put something back in its highly engineered packaging and then go to the mail store (also a good wait). The ROI IMO is poor.
Different strokes for different folks I guess.
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