In the 1980's people wrote about malls as cultural centers, as temples to shopping. Now, they're dying.
Many observers are speculating about the growing trend of so-called dead malls: once-flourishing, large retail spaces that now have a high vacancy rate, low numbers of pedestrian traffic, or the lack of an "anchor" store (typically a department chain). Is it because of economic recession, or stagnant middle-class wages and growing income inequality? Or has the death of these malls been hastened by the rapid growth of online shopping?
It's difficult to say, but the dead mall phenomenon is becoming a cultural item of interest -- for retail historians, urban explorers and documentarians alike. We may read about dead malls in The New York Times or The Atlantic, but film footage can say much more than words.
Is Amazon to blame?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:33PM (29 children)
Is it because of economic recession, or stagnant middle-class wages and growing income inequality? Or has the death of these malls been hastened by the rapid growth of online shopping?
Yes. The answer is yes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:16PM
What exactly are you trying to tell us with your comment title?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:35PM (23 children)
I think lack of product variety is also a major issue for the longterm success of shopping malls.
Except for food areas, the shopping malls around where I live dedicate at least 90% of their retail floor space to women's fashion items. The food areas by themselves are usually not a compelling reason to go to the mall. So probably around 50% of the population simply has no reason to even go to a shopping mall most of the time, let alone purchase anything there.
Unfortunately for brick and mortar stores, it is difficult to compete with online stores in product variety. Boo-hoo.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Dunbal on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:43PM (17 children)
Not to mention mall owners charge EXTORTIONATE rent. Some even go to the extent of telling you what you can and cannot do/sell in your store. Way back when the mall was the "hip" place to go and it was where all the traffic was, they could get away with this. Nowadays not so much. Why should I bother giving someone a wad of cash every month so I can have a store in their empty mall, when I could spend the same amount of money on web design, driving traffic to my website and a small logistical operation and do the whole thing offline?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:23PM
Not to mention mall owners charge EXTORTIONATE rent. Some even go to the extent of telling you what you can and cannot do/sell in your store. Way back when the mall was the "hip" place to go and it was where all the traffic was, they could get away with this. Nowadays not so much. Why should I bother giving someone a wad of cash every month so I can have a store in their empty mall, when I could spend the same amount of money on web design, driving traffic to my website and a small logistical operation and do the whole thing offline?
I figured that was the main reason why one mall near me had been dying for years while the strip mall that was built right across the street from it has not only been thriving but expanding and has many of the same stores that used to be in the mall.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:59PM (2 children)
Yes, and even in places like New York commercial rents are so extortionate that more and more spaces are lying fallow. Here's an excerpt from an interview of a chef, regarding New York City Rents:
Greed eating itself alive. I love it!
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:46AM
(((Greed))) is certainly getting desperate, isn't it?
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday April 27 2017, @01:25AM
Presumably that is the market rate, someone must be willing to pay $95K, or they would not be asking for it.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:01PM (6 children)
Why should I bother giving someone a wad of cash every month so I can have a store in their empty mall, when I could spend the same amount of money on web design, driving traffic to my website and a small logistical operation and do the whole thing offline?
Mostly because mail order is no perfect substitute for a showroom [pineight.com]. For durable goods with no ergonomic considerations, such as replacement parts for a radio control car or video cards for a desktop computer, shopping from an online catalog has clear advantages. But if you sell apparel, it's hard for shoppers to try on your product online. Likewise, if you sell laptop computers, it's hard for shoppers to try the screen and keyboard.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:20PM (3 children)
But if you sell apparel, it's hard for shoppers to try on your product online.
You must not be familiar with many places and their return policies.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday April 26 2017, @03:11AM (2 children)
Do online shops still make the buyer pay for shipping both ways, plus a 15 percent restocking fee if the product isn't actually defective?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 26 2017, @03:36AM
While I despise myself for being an Amazon Prime member, I am. I've bought most of my clothes that way for some time now and yes, the freight back is free, UPS comes right to my office to pick it up. I avoid the parking lot, finding an attendant to let me into a dressing room, undressing and redressing, standing in line, and fighting my way out of the parking lot. When I order something, I can try it on in the comfort of my own home and if it doesn't fit, send it back through a painless process that takes a minute or two. If I have to return something to a store, it's all that hassle and line standing all over again.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 26 2017, @11:17AM
No, many of them do free returns now, particularly clothing shops. My partner now buys most of her clothes online, because she can get things in 2-3 sizes, try them on and see how they go with other things in her wardrobe, and then return the ones that don't fit or don't quite go with the things she wanted to wear them with. Doing the same thing in store is much harder.
When we bought or mattress, the company that sold it offered free returns (they pay collection) within 100 days. That's far better than any showroom, because a load of mattresses are perfectly comfortable for 10-30 minutes and then become increasingly uncomfortable. Sleeping on a mattress for a few nights gives you a much better idea of whether it's actually comfortable.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by DavePolaschek on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:54PM (1 child)
It's also hard for shoppers at either end of the bell-curve to even FIND apparel that fits in a mall. Online you can find the size you need in stock and sent to you tomorrow instead of wasting two or three days trying to find that one pair of shoes in your size at a half-dozen different malls.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday April 29 2017, @12:14AM
Honestly, that doesn't help me. I've tried on many shoes that are ostensibly in my size, but then they just don't fit very well, in the heel usually. It doesn't help that my feet are narrow and everyone wants to sell extra-wide widths these days. I'm not about to buy 10 pairs of shoes on Amazon just so I can return 9 of them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:39PM (5 children)
^ THIS ^
The only reason a business owner is going to put with extortionate rent is if it is profitable. What killed malls? Technology killed the malls. They were a distribution model if you will, and they controlled the distribution channels ruthlessly. There was a time that malls were premium locations that made a business owner a lot of money. Specifically, a long time ago.
When I was a kid, if you wanted to know who was calling, you needed to pick up the damn phone and start talking. It wasn't my phone, it was my parents phone. So I talked to many adults on many occasions informing them of my complete ignorance about my parents location and/or activities. All I cared about is my friend was calling to tell me where the action was going to be on that day. The only time I had access to a cell phone was when my father gave me his at the mall so *he* could reach out and find me at any time.
Malls were logistical.
When there were no Nintendos and ubiquitous PC gaming, you went to the mall to feed quarters to some business owner playing arcade video machines. However, it became clear to kids that playing Nintendo at home after hitting a rental place was just as fun. It was also easier to get the parents to agree because they were also very aware they were no longer feeding quarters to the mall. Then the arcades started to die off, get more expensive, and frankly, became irrelevant.
When there were no online shopping giants, your only choice was the mall or some strip mall to visit a brick and mortar establishment. The mall won very quickly because it cultivated a go to place for kids to both hang out and spend money on consumer goods. They either had allowance money to spend, or their parents dropped them off with $20-$40. Cheap for the parents to go spend sometime with each other elsewhere, or just roam the malls while their kids terrorized the hall ways. The key take away though, was that those business owners were making enough profit to afford the extortion placed upon them.
For a kid, the malls were simply the best logistical choice to hang out with other kids, have some fun spending money on food and consumer goods, and exchange information.
The logistical requirements that the mall satisfied have been outmoded by technology. Kids now sext each other. That's fucking amazing to me as a guy that had practically no technology growing up at all. Girls sending naked pics of each other. If I transmitted that information to my 15 year old self, I would have been shocked and amazed. You mean, I don't have to go anywhere? All I have to do is participate with these technological devices and I get to see naked girls? Holy shit. Of course, that's offset by the incredibly problematic enforcement of laws against children because of their irresponsible use. They are online with us and finding out about the pitfalls at the same time as the adults. Not an ideal situation at all.
That's it in a nutshell. The Internet became the mall, but only much, much, much better from the perspective of children. From the perspective of parents, perhaps not so much. Although, now parents have ways to find their kids because they own the damn cell phones and can text and call them instantly. If you really needed some pizza, well, that's a couple of swipes on a cell phone app to get it delivered. Possibly by fucking Amazon drones! All of the kids moved to the Internet and their new digital hang outs. That information exchange no longer requires a logistical staging area like the mall to find each other, but an upload to YouTube, Instagram, etc. Either that, or direct and instant location information shared between each other and Google maps to tell them exactly where to walk to get to each other. That's incredible to anybody from even 70 years ago. We kinda take that for granted mostly.
Older people not at the malls? Well that's explained by the fucking economy. Working stiffs figured out they could save a lot of money by going online, and that means being able to clothe, feed, and provide shelter for their families better. Like you said, the extortion didn't help keep the adults stay around because there was not enough money being made anymore. For that matter, my younger relatives have actually told me that staying home and just playing with their tech hanging online is cheaper. Not preferred, but cheaper. It was a monetary decision which tells me that the trickle down effect where kids get allowances has largely dried up.
Lastly, why spend hundreds of dollars at the mall when your Internet connectivity fees need to be paid? That in of itself is though to be a reason why younger people no longer buy cars like they use too. It's a systemic problem being recognized because that monthly income has been reallocated towards other industries. They can no longer count on getting hundreds out of young people's wallets each month.
The mall is a remnant of ancient times when we had more primitive models of distribution and information exchange.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:34AM (3 children)
This is all good. But there are a couple of other things that kill malls.
Rent. Yep the 'rent is too damn high'. I talked to one owner. He was paying 12,000 PER month to rent a small location on the food court. Also at any moment they can come in and say 'move to this other location you have 1 day'. Suddenly your rent is still high but your foot traffic is in the dumpster.
Another thing that is killing malls? Better malls. In my area there are some really nice malls. They are thriving. The 70/80s malls are dying.
Then get this. Most malls kick anyone under 16 out. They never really spent any money. But now they do not even think about the place to shop. Why? They were kicked out.
Oh the malls are making money but they are killing themselves as the stores leave due to high rent and traffic that does not cover the overhead.
One mall I went into they had 20 or so stores empty out of 200.
The mall management is mismanaging themselves into irrelevance. Then when they figure it out they fill it with cheap junk stores. Which people with disposable income do not really shop at...
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:15AM (2 children)
Same observation here in Southern California. I have three malls close to me. One "appears" to be thriving, while the other two have lots of blanked-out storefronts.
I am quite puzzled as to why the mall management does not simply award the window display area of vacant spaces to still existing merchants instead of all that green stick-on plastic film. C'mon, lighting is not all that expensive, and only the window area has to be lit. At least it gives the shopper the *illusion* the mall isn't dying. And the existing merchants probably need all the help they can get trying to promote their merchandise.
Kids.. they will be your future customers. Would Disneyland evict kids? No... they know those kids are gonna grow up, and they want to keep the Disney memories alive in the parents so they will pass it to their kids, otherwise why would anyone want to visit this overpriced venue? I do know religions go to great lengths to plant their seed in the kids - one of the local churches in my area even has big moving-van like things they park outside the school in order to get their message into the kids.. the signs on the side go something like "released time Christian study" and they park just outside the school. Yes, getting your stuff into kids is really important. A shunned kid will remember a bad experience as well as I remember a bad experience I had with Sears when I was a kid. I wanted to buy a record for my sister's birthday - and I had just a few minutes to make a purchase while Mom kept sis occupied at another area of the store. I waited in line to buy the thing, but one adult after another kept walking up, and took priority. Mom came back with sis, and I still had not been able to make the purchase. I *still* remember that and hated to go to Sears since.
Kinds speculative, as I went through adolescence before malls were around - the "shopping center" strip malls of the 50's were what I had. You know, maybe a dozen stores sharing a parking lot. Most of which had absolutely nothing of interest to me.... stuff like women's shoes, nails, or those rows of bomb-shaped things women liked to stick their heads in.
The one that appears to be thriving puzzles me... they just re-did it about ten years ago, and I remember having teary-eyes as I saw workmen destroying that beautiful fiberglass artwork around the RonJon Surf Shop, which was to become just another retail box. I guess that surf-motif kept triggering fond memories of when I was a kid, and surfing and hanging out with friends. Now, it was going to become just another "pay amount due" store. I can't figure out what to hell's in that mall that attracts anybody.
All my favorite stores died out. I did not think Borders would ever go, but they did. They were frantic for sales before the end, and I remember the manager getting on my nerves about how I placed a coffee order, trying to tell me I could not order coffee in a way that it imitated one of their six-dollar specialty offerings. I simply could not afford to go there and drink six dollar coffees, but I could afford a two-dollar coffee. If I was gonna spend six dollars, I would go to DelTaco and get the whole meal.
They took out a sizeable amount of the parking lot for yet more stores which have nothing in them I would want... even if you put a "free" sign on everything in it. About all I could use are the displays. They even brought in a valet service for those who cannot find a parking space. The existence of this thing is an enigma to me - like watching something run with no apparent source of energy.
They are competing with a 24 hour WalMart nearby. Target's open till Midnight. Mall closes at 9.
My guess is the movie house is the source of all the traffic.
But personally, since they doubled their ticket price and refused to honor their "silver experience" voucher for admission, demanding surcharges, I simply ceased going to the movies. I was pissed before even finding a seat. From what I could see, it was mostly young people there, with a date, trying to find some way of spending a couple of hours with their partner in a "safe" space. The last movies I saw there was "An Inconvenient Truth", and "Sicko", as the theatre would run these documentaries on the side instead of having a completely dead room.
There sure are a lot of documentaries on YouTube over dead malls.
I never thought I would see something that cost so much money be abandoned like that. But I now know how this works. Its called a "Real Estate Investment Trust". A few suit-people go out and sell the concept to a bunch of people as a retirement investment. All the suit-guys reap management fees, the legal guys get paid, and all the investor gets back is reams of printed paper detailing the slow and painful evaporation of their now illiquid investment. Personal experience here. The people behind the mall I invested in had just found a bunch of words, which when hocked up, would persuade people like me to invest. They would constantly hock up "backed by real estate", and rates of return from leasing to wealthy money-making merchants. They were management types who got paid as long as there was any money in the system. Same with all the legal folks.
The investor, of which I was one of many, lost our shirt on that one. Once the money changed hands, I never saw a dime of it again, as I helplessly watched them grazing away on my retirement investment, sending me all sorts of business paperwork until I finally got the final letter saying all the money was gone.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:38PM (1 child)
I still remember feeling helpless and insignificant when I was a little kid while passed over time after time while waiting patiently in line while adults were served in front of me. I made myself a promise that I would never do that when I was an adult. Forty years later, I have kept that promise to myself. And if I witness it in my presence, I make a big scene in front of EVERYONE to make sure that the child is acknowledged. Nobody gets away with ignoring a customer around me just because that customer is a minor.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:37AM
Bet you are a hero to quite a few kids!
You have shown them that you consider the rules apply to everyone, and no one has the right to tromple another just because he can.
Way too many kids seem to be shown these days that the rules only apply to those who will willingly obey the rules, while the winners don't have to honor them. Only the losers.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @04:56PM
The malls around here were only d-baggy kids, families on an outing, or people with money. As Software Etc+Electronics Boutique merged into what eventually became GameStop, and other places like KB toys and then the book stores died out, being replaced by high end stores who never marked down stock enough to warrant purchases, I stopped going to the mall. The social circles I would have fit in with were already other places (either regional hobby shops, book stores, or other places, often not all that much less condescending than the mall was.)
Point being: The ambiance had worn off, and the veneer of awe malls once had turned into the same sort of ambivalence I had after my first (and last!) trip to Vegas, and how walking one block off the old strip turned the place into a veritable ghetto.
And much like your statement above, I chose to move to online devices and access, where you move somewhere else if the people you were associating with turned out to be douchebags, rather than being stuck with those 'ackward moments' running into/avoiding them at the mall. Plus as you said, it was often much cheaper to buy a couple of video games (especially from the discount bin!) and have weeks or months of entertainment for less than a day out at the mall/movie/etc would cost.
Nowadays we're instead seeing that same rent seeking behavior mentioned above moved into direct to consumer 'IP', and instead of the retailers getting fucked, consumers can get fucked manufacturer/producer direct with no middlemen! (Except Steam, Amazon, Newegg, etc... Ooops, middlemen!)
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:57PM (3 children)
Let me tell you about lack of product variety.
There a dozen different kinds of Crest toothpaste at my local Target store.
On my recent vacation in March, I tried a travel sized that I was unfamiliar with: Crest White. I like it. A few days ago I needed to buy toothpaste for home and remembered that I want to get Crest White. Does Target have Crest White? Uh, No.
What do they have: Crest White 3D !
What?!? Is this supposed to be better than toothpaste that works in only two dimensions?
I guess their marketing department forgot to invoke the other magical incantation that I see in everything now: Digital.
Crest White 3D Digital toothpaste. Because like digital heaters, digital toasters, etc it's so much better than analog toothpaste, analog heaters, and analog toasters.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:59PM
Is digital toothpaste meant to be applied with your fingers? :-)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:06PM
I only use Crest White IMAX DBOX.
(Score: 3, Funny) by butthurt on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:41PM
Now available at Eyeglass Direct. High Definition Digital Progressives Upgrade
-- http://www.eyeglassdirect.com/HTML/HDupgrade.htm [eyeglassdirect.com]
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday April 26 2017, @03:14PM
last time I was at a mall food court was 2 years ago and they had large display screens mounted on the walls and ceilings (angled down) and BLASTING YOU with a constant stream of ads and bullshit. and noise. so much noise!
fuck that. I'll take a drive-thru and eat in my car. having some peace and quiet is harder to come by, these days.
and not having to drive around for a long time to find parking, only to come back later to find broken windows and stuff missing from the car.
no thanks. let the mall die. we don't need them anymore.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:21AM
Is it because of economic recession, or stagnant middle-class wages and growing income inequality? Or has the death of these malls been hastened by the rapid growth of online shopping?
While those things have some effect, I think we're missing the biggest thing - oversupply. I think this kills malls in several ways. The obvious one is more supply means less demand for any given mall. But there's also synergistic effects between number of visitors to a mall (or "visitation") and the variety of stores and to some degree entertainment options that might make a mall more attractive.
My take is that a good way to determine if oversupply is happening is to determine if there's a lot of malls with minimal features. A few posts here indicate that is happening with bland and sterile designs (and of course, some indication of shifty business plans in one of the stories) in both the design of the mall and its tenants. After all, if your mall is a sure thing, then why go out of your way to do anything special, right? That lack of care for what the mall, that you spent a lot of money on, looks like or does is a prime sign of overproduction IMHO.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:43AM (1 child)
Actually it's perfectly answered by one of the linked articles:
That's because developers rapidly overbuilt malls in the 20th century, she said: The U.S. has twice as much square footage in shopping centers per capita than the rest of the world, and six times as much as countries in Europe.
Yup, that would about do it. I live in a (non-US) city, population about 2M, and we have five, possibly six, malls for the whole city. All are thriving, and one is currently undergoing a major expansion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:11PM
We had 6 malls. 3 down a centerline, 3 15+ miles away in opposite directions in suburban neighborhoods.
Of those, two have been bulldozed and made into a stadium and strip mall respectively. Both are near other strip malls. One other was bulldozed and completely remade, and now has maybe 33 percent occupancy with the final anchor store preparing to close. The final two are in 'new development' areas where the per family income is much higher (large percentage of first gen immigrants trying to live the american dream, plus upper middle class trying to show they've got wealth.)
Those two malls are also surrounded by BLOCKS of strips malls, in far higher quantity and with far more 'name brand' stores than the older 'original' regional malls.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:25PM
That, and the lack of "new shiny." Long before online shopping, there were dead malls - on their way down a 1980s black comedian referred to them as "you know, the mall where white people used to shop."
Like apartment buildings, housing subdivisions, cars, etc. the "new shiny" gets the premium cash flow, then it becomes run-down and rents/sells for cut rates, then it gets abandoned. The big new shiny shopping malls from the 1980s boom are also simply aging out, and few of them possess the appeal to warrant renovation.
Meanwhile, if you look around, in my towns it's the "town center" developments that are attracting the new shiny.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by AssCork on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:37PM (40 children)
As an Army-brat, while moving from place to place every few months, I came to the realization that massive coin-operated video-game areas ("arcades") inside malls were shrinking (then became virtually non-existent).
Perhaps it was the areas we moved to, however I suspect otherwise.
With the dawn of (relatively) reliable online-shopping with (somewhat) speedy shipping, why bother going to a mall to pay "mall prices" when you can go online and find exactly what you're looking for at a (sometimes significant) discount?
Heck, most often sales tax isn't even required (a savings of 6 to 9% depending on where you live).
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:52PM (35 children)
I'll tell you why you should bother going to a mall:
1) So you can see products in-person, instead of just looking at a photo. You don't need to actually buy them, just check them out at the mall, and then buy them online (someplace other than Amazon, so you can save on sales tax).
2) So you can walk around in a climate-controlled place around other humans, instead of just staying at home alone.
Obviously, these things aren't going to bring any revenue to the mall's merchants, unless you do happen to buy something (maybe some food). But the article mentions pedestrian traffic being way down. Obviously if the mall closes because no one's buying anything, then pedestrians aren't going to be able to hang out there and window-shop any more, but things seem to be reversed: the people aren't coming any more. Why is that?
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:04PM (29 children)
1: seeing the products in person isn't as much of a pull as the malls thought it was. I don't think I've ever looked at something and gone "You know, this might interest me, but I'd really prefer to be able to see it physically first." Maybe I'm weird.
2: There are probably better places to be. Where I live has a nice climate so people tend to be, you know, outside. Malls in general are pretty depressing and sterile, I don't blame people for not wanting to go there.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:08PM (5 children)
>Where I live has a nice climate so people tend to be, you know, outside.
Where's that?
In the north-central US, it's below freezing for much of the year.
In the northeast US, it's below freezing for part of the year, and generally chilly for much of the year, and it rains a lot.
In the southeast US, it's horribly hot and humid for part of the year, and rains a lot and without warning.
In the southwest US, it's ridiculously hot for half the year or more, and is a great place to get skin cancer.
In the northwest US, the temperature is usually fairly nice if a little brisk, but it's constantly drizzling.
In the central US, the weather is extreme and there's tornadoes.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:16PM
Mountains in the southeast :)
Course it does get around freezing a lot of the time in january/february, but then there are also days in the 60's/70's those months.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:18PM (2 children)
You forgot the midwest, it's generally pretty nice here if you're a native.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:44PM (1 child)
I have ancestors and relatives in Wisconsin in the center of the state (like Wausau ha ha see I'm legit I know the funny names) and when I visit the weather is really nice for about one month in the spring and one in the fall. The rest of the year its the end of the world. Also being east of the mississippi it rains like every 3rd day. I don't think Californians know what rain is, but I assure you its annoying to get that much rain.
Also I am not sure how, but the mosquitoes in Wisconsin are worse than in the deep south.
The land is a frigging paradise. There's this mountain in Wausau near the center of the state where the WHOLE MOUNTAIN is one giant state park. I've been there and its like the garden of eden on a mountain or something. I can see why all of Illinois tries to drive to Wisconsin every weekend.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:00PM
I forgot to mention the mosquitoes, that's a pretty important point in the South or anywhere near it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:22PM
Really? You're bringing tornadoes into this?
"Hey hon, looks like a tornado might be coming."
"TO THE MALL!"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:37PM (13 children)
Malls in general are pretty depressing and sterile
Whats up with that meme? I don't remember depressing and sterile as a theme, but I'm sure its been tried at some times and places. I'm old so I've see some fads come and go down at the mall.
When I was a kid there was a fad of running water river like ponds down the middle of hallways where those ugly cellphone kiosks are today. It was like walking down a river kinda weirdly cool.
And in the holidays we had santa and easter bunny.
There was a fad after the water feature were removed of food kiosks before they all became dumpy sunglass/phone kiosks, and that at least tasted good. The food court idea wiped that out, unfortunately.
Another thing done with hallways was shows. I loved those. Car shows. Lego shows. Something like gencon but less wild (hell maybe it was gencon?). Here's a weird one, the piano show. It was so fascinating seeing some weird new event. I distinctly remember like 30 years later a computer show where a TI-99 or something had a graphical CPU display of assembly language which was fascinating as I was programming 6809 and z80 at home without any such amazing animation. And they had a IBM PC (probably 4.77 mhz pre-xt era) doing some sorting demo using bars on the screen and different algos. Well, that was the mall back in the good old days!
In the 00s they tried projectors / dance floor. That was creative. Somewhat more invigorating music, some lasers and disco balls, damn I have to give them credit I'm sure the 80 year old grannies didn't like the music but it was kinda cool. I donno if that was long term or temporary.
Somehow, some gang of lunatics brought in some chillers one winter and we had an pop up ice skating rink IN THE MALL. frigging unbelievable. I guess it was thermodynamically possible somehow.
There were more than a few concerts in the mall. Both high school kids doing christmas carols and dudes hired to pound a piano, all the way up to actual small concerts by like 3rd rate "below county fair" caliber bands. Interesting.
I distinctly remember several bridal shows in the main atrium. It was almost stereotypical after christmas before May/June I mean other than easter bunny what else did they have to do? I don't mind bridal shows some of the models are pretty hot.
Ah what else. There was exactly and precisely one RC car race in the atrium. I don't know if customers got hit or the clientele didn't get along?
I remember a plastic scale model show. I remember it because it had a scale aircraft carrier. About 30 feet long. Jawdropping.
There were numerous model railroad shows in the mall too. They had a modular n-trak one time that went from one end to the other, must have literally been 1000 modules.
There were military recruitment events at the mall. But not just dude in uniform at table like happened at high school. The army brought freaking tanks and M113 APCs and an attack helicopter on static display and the air force got a small training jet in there somehow. No I don't think they flew it in, I think it went in the cargo doors like anything else. I remember the navy getting teased "hey you guys bring in a battleship?" ha ha ha. The marines just brought in a bunch of marines in dress blues I think they had entire reserve units there, and were just as mobbed with people as the army so whatever.
I'm sure it exists today if you say so, I just don't remember the local mall as "depressing and sterile". I'm sure a dead mall with no traffic and closed storefronts sucks, but the old days were not like that, not at all. Its like a bar or restaurant, any POS hole in the wall is fun if its packed with people having fun, and no amusement park is fun no matter how cool it is, if its abandoned and tumbleweeds.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:05PM (4 children)
Dunno, you've probably got a good 10 or 20 years on me so maybe there was some shift in malls between then. I've been in a couple which weren't quite so bad, but those were in the larger cities in the US as a rule. Most malls are pretty bad.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:11PM (3 children)
Now that you point it out, it is true that almost everything good that I mentioned was from the 80s. That seems to have been the glory decade of the mall.
The only cool thing I've seen in a mall in the last 20 years is a traveling lego exhibition of Washington DC monuments. Vs all that stuff I saw in the 80s.
Maybe liability insurance I donno.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:12PM (1 child)
I dunno man, I'm only 27 and I remember seeing a lot of that kind of stuff in the mall of the small town where I grew up. Nothing too crazy but I remember seeing cars in the hallways pretty regularly, sometimes military hardware as well. And of course the "Santa's Village" or Easter Bunny whatever stuff. Or the small local bands or highschool choir. Nothing really *interactive* like the RC races, but it's a town of 10k with two malls so I don't think they would have had enough traffic for that.
But at the same time I *do* consider that mall kinda boring and sterile. Spent twenty years in that town, the mall only has one floor with three main hallways (kind of a plus sign with the side arms offset) but I'd still get lost in there because *EVERYTHING LOOKS THE SAME!* Flat white tiled floors with flat white cinder block walls and flat white drop ceilings above. Even the goddamn anchor stores mostly looked the same except for K-Mart. If I wasn't within sight of the RadioShack or K-Mart, I didn't have a clue where the hell I was in that place. And it's only got twenty or thirty stores! Even when they did do something more colorful or interesting, it was confined to very specific designated locations with rope lines and walls separating it from the rest of the mall. There was the mall, there were the shops, and there were the exhibits...and there was no visible interaction between the three. Almost like the mall was designed not to bring the shops together but to create an empty and inoffensive buffer zone between them...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:32PM
but to create an empty and inoffensive buffer zone between them.
Maybe the store managers didn't get along LOL. Sometimes its something that simple. Takes a lot of cooperation to pull off some of the stuff I saw. Even something as "simple" as the bridal show every store in the building went insane with bridal registry this and that, and theming every window display to match the event, handing out free junk bags from each store to the brides... I could see if the store mgrs hated each other it isn't happening and they're all gonna be much poorer till they're out of business.
The whole thing reminds me of "downtown boosterism" except at a mall, and unlike downtown, people actually went to the mall. Or maybe "downtown boosterism" is merely dreaming of doing today, downtown, what malls did in the 80s, I donno.
Maybe its just what successful retailers do, no matter where they are, and in the 80s they happened to be in the suburban mall. About all I'm sure is they're not in the mall now, LOL.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday April 29 2017, @12:36AM
Now that you point it out, it is true that almost everything good that I mentioned was from the 80s.
Most good things, in general, are from the 80s.
Movies: Aliens, Terminator, Ghostbusters, Blade Runner, etc. The 80s was full of great movies. Today's movies are mostly crap.
Music: Lots of great rock and metal (and lots of not-so-great but still fun to listen to stuff). Even the pop music wasn't too bad, and occasionally brilliant, at least until rap started infecting it (but that was really the 90s). Music today is crap.
TV: Lots of fun TV shows: Airwolf, Knight Rider, etc. Not always very realistic (an intelligent car?), but lots of fun to watch. There's some great TV these days I'll admit (GoT), but the fun factor really isn't there any more.
Houses: They were actually affordable in the 80s. Today, not so much. And they didn't have all those gaudy McMansions back then either.
Cars: Well, maybe not so much here... Cars were a lot better in the 90s actually, and today's cars are generally the best IMO. You can still get very decent cars under $20k now, and they'll be more reliable than anything from the 80s by far.
Being a kid: In the 80s, you could walk around outside all you wanted, even at under 10 years old. These days, you'll get picked up by the cops and your parents either arrested for child endangerment or at least getting in trouble with CPS (even though the crime rate is actually quite a bit lower than in the 70s or 80s). Why would anyone want to have a kid in today's environment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:58PM
When I was a kid there was a fad of running water river like ponds down the middle of hallways where those ugly cellphone kiosks are today. It was like walking down a river kinda weirdly cool.
I remember the indoor ponds and fountains that they used to have when I was a kid and missed them after they were removed. I also remember events like when the mall was filled with animatronic dinosaurs for the summer when Jurassic Park came out.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:19PM (2 children)
That shit's been gone for years and years. Malls these days have no space for "events." The interiors are filled with cart/kiosk obstacles selling sunglasses, watches, cell phone plans, perfumes, ugly jewelry, and trendy made-in-China junk. At Christmas, there are even more. If you're lucky, they MIGHT bring in a Santa at Christmas where they sell $30 photos of your kids. Just look for the "absolutely no cell phone photos" sign.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:25PM (1 child)
Interestingly, a major mall in my city recently finished a years-long renovation and expansion of a new 3-floor wing to accommodate 20-30 more stores. The ground floor at the very end of the expanded wing is kept clear of those popup kiosks for "events", and last year they had a fashion show to showcase a local music event that would be in a few months.
That said, the smaller shopping malls are indeed having problems. I just had a counter-anecdote to the idea that malls these days have no space for small or medium-sized events.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday April 29 2017, @12:40AM
Well, from my own experience in recent years and reading the comments here, it definitely seems to be varied: many malls are dying, but some malls are doing just fine or booming. I've seen a few malls that were doing great, and plenty that looked like they were on the way to bankruptcy. I guess it just shows that malls still have a place in certain areas, when they're run by smart management, and have figured out how to retain customers (and are located in places where they have paying customers), but meanwhile in many places these things just aren't in place and the mall is spiraling down. Overall, that industry is contracting, but that doesn't mean it'll completely disappear any time soon.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:09PM (2 children)
> [...] we had an pop up ice skating rink IN THE MALL.
In Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai, there are malls that have permanent ice rinks:
https://everythingtianjin.com/recreation/ice-skating-in-tianjin/ [everythingtianjin.com]
http://www.tour-beijing.com/blog/beijing-travel/beijing-top-10/top-10-ice-skating-rinks-in-beijing [tour-beijing.com]
http://www.smartshanghai.com/venue/4146/Wujiaochang_Champion_Rink_shanghai [smartshanghai.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:44AM
Speaking of malls with ice rinks ( and much much more ) this mall is still going strong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Edmonton_Mall [wikipedia.org]
It inspired a man in China to build an even bigger mall ... but when I was there in 2008 it was pretty much dead and on government life support. They were ahead of the curve there ;)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:03PM
Yeah that's a nice idea, but the amazing part of a pop up ice rink is I'm pretty sure the designers had no idea when they built the building. I guess anywhere the HVAC can be convinced not to blow hot air directly on the floor, and the structural engineering is sound for the modest mass of an inch or two of (frozen) water, and theres enough KW at the electrical panel to run the chillers, ta da instant ice rink. I guess if I were crazy enough I could do this in my living room...
Kind of like hot tub in my back yard, yeah, that's right where they belong, but walk into my office and see a surprise hot tub installed, whoa thats a surprise...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:09PM
You obviously lived somewhere with culture, and people who care.
I've lived places like that, "The Falls" mall in south Miami was purpose built around waterfalls like a Tennessee river, kinda cool as you say.
I've also lived places where we knew the "mall general manager" for a while, before he shipped his family off to the next culture-free town to maximize profits for the space owners. His mall's "special events" were tepid, vapid, boring and unattractive, but he had air-conditioning between the stores whereas the rest of the retail space in town did not, the competing retail space was mostly 3 miles of continuous strip-malls, parking lot with a row of stores facing it, with stellar anchors like Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and a movie theater.
Organizing and executing events like a piano show requires a market with sufficient disposable income to do something like buy a piano. As TFA says, that demographic is shrinking - it still exists in pockets, but those pockets are shrinking and "cool malls" are giving way to WalMart Supercenters. It's not my favorite trend of the last 30 years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:16PM
>>> I don't think I've ever looked at something and gone "You know, this might interest me, but I'd really prefer to be able to see it physically first."
Once upon a time, seeing things physically was pretty much the way you did it. Sure, there were advertising brochures in the newspaper - maybe those are before your time too.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:32PM (7 children)
1: seeing the products in person isn't as much of a pull as the malls thought it was. I don't think I've ever looked at something and gone "You know, this might interest me, but I'd really prefer to be able to see it physically first." Maybe I'm weird.
You're not "weird" (well, you may be, but that's beside the point here) -- but things have changed radically in marketing of products and delivery over the generations.
Before Amazon, buying a product locally wasn't just about "seeing the product in person" -- it was about convenience. If you ordered something from the Sears Catalogue (which existed since the 1800s), you might have to wait a few weeks for them to ship it. And then if you accidentally ordered the wrong thing or they shipped the wrong thing or it was broken, you'd be dealing with more days or weeks of waiting to deal with that.
If you go to a store, you avoid a lot of those problems and/or resolve them quickly. Amazon's ubiquitous super-fast shipping has changed all of that, making speedy mail-order service that you'd use to pay a huge premium actually pretty affordable.
But of course what made the Sears Catalogue exciting generations ago was the fact that you had more variety. You could get stuff that you couldn't find locally, or which you'd have to drive around or call around for hours trying to find.
The mall promised to save you that trouble by housing a variety of businesses under one roof. It was mostly about convenience of access to the products.
But there also used to be a greater interest in "in-person" product marketing. Old-school department stores used to set up displays of new products, which offered to let you try them out or have a free sample (or whatever, depending on product type). Salespeople would discuss new features with you. New product releases were often an event, because -- frankly -- there were such more limited options back then. A new type of toothpaste could even be a sales event; nowadays, when each brand offers a dozen varieties, and there are a dozen brands, would anyone really care about some salesperson trying to convince you to try another one within over a hundred existing options? If, on the other hand, there were only 3 or 4 normal options for toothpaste, suddenly a new product release has a lot more interest -- and the sample at the store could be helpful.
While store displays and free samples and trials still exist, they just don't have the value they once did. Hence -- and here we get to the final issue with the death of in-person shopping -- everything is generally "in a box" at stores. It seems to me even a few decades ago that there were more "display models" out for you to try something or at least look it over in some detail; now, you're just shopping for an anonymous item shipped in a big box, which is often 1 out of 100 different models/varieties of that sort of thing.
So yeah, I agree with you: today there are fewer and fewer things I actually care about seeing in person while shopping. Hence malls (and many retail stores) become less and less useful as years go by.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:10PM (3 children)
But of course what made the Sears Catalogue exciting generations ago was the fact that you had more variety. You could get stuff that you couldn't find locally, or which you'd have to drive around or call around for hours trying to find.
I like that point, there's a lot of talk about internet killed this and that, but its worth pointing out that Radio Shack (a common mall store) is dead but Digikey and Mouser (and a few others) are basically the Sears Catalogue of electronic parts online and AFAIK business is booming for them.
Supposedly in the old days, old men at old fashioned hardware stores gave personal service the way parametric search does today online. "My horse wagon wheel is squealing" and next thing you know you're holding a tub of muskrat grease or something. Today you go online, I need a SMD DC blocking capacitor, 0402 physical size, resonant frequency above 2.6 GHz, blammo here's a list you'll have a pick-n-place spool of any of them by airmail tomorrow morning if not faster. And its all automated and incredibly cheap.
Its a pity Sears didn't go that strategy for home hardware and stuff. Or radio shack should have tried.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by draconx on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:44PM (1 child)
I don't know how these guys manage to deliver products so consistently fast. We recently ordered some parts on Digikey for our office. It arrived on the 2nd business day after we ordered it. Through no action of our own, Digikey apologised for the delay and refunded the $8 shipping cost.
This is how you get customers that are happy to give you money, over and over again.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:06PM
You must live "far away" because I'm close enough for tomorrow morning. I believe they claim anything ordered before 8pm local is shipped that day. I think the whole thing is robots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:05PM
While there are a couple shitty hardware stores around that give 'condescending' service, if you don't look like 'their kind' of people, we also have one in my town that is ~1/8 the size of a Home Depot, but has about the same number of employees. They give customized service to each customer, know where almost all the stock in their store is (occasionally you get people who are from another department helping you out, and if they can't help you, they try and find a proper employee of that department, or will check inventory if that fails.) Their parking lot is almost never less than half full, they seem to make plenty of money, the employees are always cheerful and helpful, and they have a diverse staff of multiple ethnicities all knowledgeable in the diverse fields of hardware they carry.
While I don't believe our town could support dozens or hundreds of similiar stores, I do believe that same level of care and commitment needs to followed by more stores if they expect to survive the current online purchasing trend. The issues of inventory and cost are problematic, but as the store in question shows, people are willing to pay a 10-50 percent markup if they can find the item same-day and get the right tool for the job, but *IF* and only *IF* they feel the experience was worth it. If the experience dealing with the store is bad, people will only go there for discounted goods, which in turn is a self-perpetuating cycle into oblivion, just like happened with Radio Shack, Montgomery's, Circuit City, Best, Good Guys, Computer City, etc in the 90s-00s.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:52AM (1 child)
Back about 100 years ago, you could literally buy a house in the Sears catalog. The program ran from 1908 to 1940,and the kits were usually delivered by boxcar. Some people would construct them like a barn raising, while others hired local contractors. There were hundreds of styles, and many had modern conveniences like central heating. These houses were high quality, and many still exist today.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by nethead on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:34AM
Yep, the Craftsman. For $800,000 you can have one too!
http://www.windermere.com/listing/WA/Seattle/106-NW-50th-St-98107/55192797 [windermere.com]
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by nethead on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:31AM
A Thomas Organ store, couldn't have a real mall without some dweeb blasting out the Laurence Welk from his store.
To be honest, some of those organs were pretty cool considering the tech of the day.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:17PM
Blech! That is the worst part about shopping. The worst!
(Score: 1) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:20PM (2 children)
They typically don't have the products. The inventory of a brick-and-mortar store which is residing on expensive real estate is unlikely to even reach a shadow of what an online system has, where warehousing can be done much more efficiently on cheap-as-possible real estate. Why try to go look at what you aren't likely to find? Even if you just want to put eyeballs on it, you aren't all that likely to be able to for most products, and certainly not for a variety along those lines.
erm... I truly hope I am never that lonely.
Because it's a huge time sink compared to online shopping. Because there's really very little (or nothing) there to drag us in. Because it's a great way to catch a lovely cold or flu. Because there are innumerable better / more entertaining things to do with, to and for others. Because the parking ranges from horrible to outright dangerous, something shared with most big box stores in my experience, which again tends to send me online.
The only reason I can even think of that would attract me to a mall would be a good restaurant, but what good restaurant is going to locate in a mall? All I've ever seen was fast food right down to the elephants and turtle. Perhaps it's just the malls in my state, but that's been my experience.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:40PM (1 child)
It must be the malls in your state. The malls in my area (northern VA) have lots of expensive chain restaurants (Legal Seafood for instance), and other non-chain ones.
Of course, the best restaurants are the non-chain ones in "old town" downtown areas, but those are hard to get to because of parking.
(Score: 1) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:31PM
Yes, we definitely don't have Legal Seafood here, and yes, I'd go for that. Touché.
(Score: 1) by DavePolaschek on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:57PM
1 isn't a big deal if the mall doesn't stock the product you want to look at.
For 2, I started walking in the mall last year to get some exercise during the cold winter months. I went to a dying mall because there were no people to get in the way of my walking. Most of the stores weren't even open when I was walking, so I couldn't buy anything even if I had wanted to.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:31PM (3 children)
Why even go to a '90s fad "big box" store to pay premium prices? When we bought our first flat-screen in 2006, I wanted to do it on a whim - we were having dinner next to a "Best Buy" and I thought "what the hell, pay an extra 20% and just take it home tonight..." Oh, so very very wrong. Not only was it 20% more, but it was last year's model, if we wanted anything with remotely modern specs we'd have to order it, wait just like online shopping, but come back to the store to get some pressure upsell on overpriced cables to go with it. How they expect to sell anything with that kind of stance I don't know. BTW, Circuit City was dead - presumably from similar causes, a couple of years later.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday April 26 2017, @04:10PM (2 children)
BTW, Circuit City was dead - presumably from similar causes, a couple of years later.
Now there is a name I haven't heard in a long time. I had a friend who worked at Circuit Shitty and he believed everything they told him. Most memorable was that he believed that DIVX [wikipedia.org] would supersede DVD as the new home video standard.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:08PM
Just in the form of Bluray+Java Runtime instead of the DIVX format itself :)
Circuit City was just ahead of their time.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday April 27 2017, @06:56AM
Oh yes, I will never forget the lesson of the DIVX disk: Make damn sure anything I buy is on a standard format!
I am not putting my wallet in THAT bear-trap again.
I have passed on a lot of commercial stuff because it reeked of the DIVX business model that bit me.
Seller says "proprietary format", buyer puts credit card back in wallet, says "Thank you", and leaves while he still has the funds.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lx on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:45PM (3 children)
What time is it?
No time to look back. [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:09PM (2 children)
Going to the mall requires wearing clothing and some minimum level of personal hygiene. Worse is having to experience being outdoors. But intolerable is sunlight. Why go to the mall when I can stay in the comfort of the basement, and experience the excitement of tracking my shipment. In a mall you have to get exercise walking.
The mall food court has too many choices. Online I can order a 50lb bag of Bachelor Chow delivered to my door.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:22PM (1 child)
Online I can order a 50lb bag of Bachelor Chow delivered to my door.
Speaking of food, we're getting a bit off topic, and I usually don't eat junk food, but lets be realistic, I've been to Pizza Hut a couple times and I've ordered delivery by phone a couple times and I've used the app to order online a couple times and the app experience is awesome. First time ever there's no rush no hurry I can look thru the list as long as I want to select exactly what I want.
Retail is dead because it sucks compared to online. We're allowed to talk about money and convenience in polite company, but its too interpersonally rude to tell people that rushing thru the process with some part time college girl who has no idea what she's doing isn't as much fun as mulling it over online as whatever speed you enjoy. There's probably a pr0n analogy to the above, actually thats a pretty funny was to read the previous line.
Its funny that socially in public we can't talk about how the UI of a minimum wage kid in person is far worse than the UI of a moderately decent app.
I suppose if you think about it, for decades or centuries youngsters have been useful for performing arts, pr0n, not much else, and certainly the only culture thats tried to use youngsters to negotiate business deals is recent western hyperconsumerism.
Its interesting to think about, if we could try retail with clerks older and more intelligent than my belt or wallet, maybe that would work
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:36PM
In the 1960s, it wasn't a minimum wage kid in a commodity chain store, it was a value-add career salesman with actual experience and more knowledge than you'll ever hope to have about the products.
The crapification of the products, and the stores that sell them, is a big part of why retail is dying. If the products themselves continue on their trend toward toilet-paper build quality, online shopping may go down next. How much ephemeral bling do you really need to be happy in life. (Hint: 0.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:47PM (30 children)
People shopping at Amazon is one thing, but where are people going to just hang out? When I was a teenager, my friends and I frequently went to the mall to hang out, because there really wasn't much else to do, especially if the weather was lousy. We never bought much, except food at the food court, but we walked around and looked at stuff, hung out at the food court, etc. Even at older ages, it was fun to go there with an SO and window-shop, get a drink or a snack, maybe eat at one of the restaurants, etc.
Of course, people walking around a lot and window-shopping, or checking things out in person and then ordering them online, doesn't help mall stores stay in business, but this article isn't talking about lack of sales, it specifically calls out low pedestrian traffic. Where are people going? What other places are there for people to hang out in public? Maybe a local park if the weather is nice, sure, but in many places of the US the weather isn't very nice for large parts of the year: it's too cold, too hot, or too wet. There's a reason the country's largest indoor mall is in Minnesota, and the world's largest indoor mall is (was?) in Edmonton Canada: normal people don't like hanging around outside when it's below freezing.
I'm sorry, I find it a little hard to believe that everyone's just staying at home now.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:53PM (15 children)
I have heard that open air malls are doing well. Get a clothing store, theater, restaurants, etc. Into one area. Lower operating costs than an air conditioned mall.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:57PM (14 children)
Where did you "hear" this? From the companies pushing these things?
They're nice enough when the weather is nice. What about when it's below freezing, or when it's over 90F? What about when it's raining? There's a reason we humans invented the "roof".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:17PM (5 children)
You can have cover to block rain and provide shade. And if it's cold outside, you just enter a shop/restaurant/pub/whatever.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/death-enclosed-mall [motherjones.com]
https://newrepublic.com/article/121203/american-malls-are-changing-their-look-and-their-tactics [newrepublic.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:30PM (3 children)
you just enter a shop/restaurant/pub/whatever.
Yeah whats up with the design pattern that all strip malls seem to have the same stores?
At every intersection of two major arterial roads, there's the Chinese takeout place, the manicure place that is always next door to the Chinese takeout, there's a bank branch or mortgage company or payday loan(shark) (or worst of all, title-loans), a pizza place, some kind of dollar store or a grocery store or pharmacy. 50:50 on a new fitness type of gym (like not a giant Golds but more of a 24-anytime-fitness mini-gym, there's one about every mile in every direction). Again 50:50 on a Starbucks coffee. A fast food joint or panera bread or juice dealer (jamba, whatever) probably in the parking lot. Now repeat that 2000 feet down the road in every direction. Every strip mall is the same.
Now whats interesting is its very unusual to have a store that doesn't fit the formula. I live near the Asians in a wealthy area so we have a Kumon. I don't want to get into a Kumon debate but we'll just say it seems to work very well teaching math to asian kids but not so much my kids. And a town to the east the biggest strip mall has, of all things, a Hooters restaurant. And thats the only variation in formula I can think of for several dozen strip malls, the formula is pretty strict.
(Score: 2) by nethead on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:52AM (2 children)
When I was young, decades ago, I always wanted to travel America. Now that I have the means and enough vacation a year to do so, why? It's all turned into an infinite loop of what you described. Traveling for business, I found it all mostly the same, Tampa, St. Louis, Huntington Beach, Philly, Boesman, Wasilla, wherever. About the only way I've found to avoid that is to follow the coast through poor little towns that can't afford the strip mall. Anyplace over about 15k population has gone chain.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:50PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 26 2017, @03:08PM
If its any consolation, its nothing new, decades ago uncle sam sent me to various military bases in the US (never did get overseas) and obviously military bases are interchangeable but the usual town that grows up around the base was also mostly interchangeable.
Getting out in the field, the wilderness is highly variable, however.
In the field the difference between, I donno, Ft Dix and Redstone is pretty obvious, but in garrison (barracks buildings) or in town you can't tell.
Its very easy to get a Whopper at Ft Dix or at Redstone, or at least it used to be, but its pretty hard to get regional food.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:37PM
I've been to the newer lifestyle centers in the Phoenix area; there's no cover there. Rain isn't a big problem of course, but sunlight is. So they were really nice to visit in the winter (there is no fall or spring in Phoenix), but in the summer forget it. No thanks, I don't want to stroll around in 115 degree heat.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:00PM (4 children)
There is also a regular mall even closer to my house and parking is never an issue there. Store turnover there is brutal and we expect its Macy's, JC Penney and Sears anchor stores to go tits up any minute. Foot traffic inside the mall is not what it was just a few years ago.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:42PM (2 children)
I'm really starting to wonder how much of this is "white flight": the poorer minorities are hanging out at the older malls, and the richer white people are flocking to the newer "lifestyle centers" despite the exposure to the elements, because the minorities aren't there (and the minorities don't bother because it's outdoors, and because there's no stores there that interest them).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:27PM (1 child)
There was a recent alt-right discussion about how SWPL left wing people survive as minorities in urban environments by weaponizing SWPL-ness, the 2 million brown people in the city don't care about vegan drum circles and thats how the SWPLs self-preserve in pure white admittedly toxically left wing enclaves, the larger group they live in is very diverse but the people they hang out with at the Kombucha farm or the dredlock hair dresser or antifa bar is less diverse than the right wing people in the burbs experience. I have seen that in person, visiting a Whole Foods in the hood and that was the only building for a couple miles around that was whiter than a Klan meeting. Well, or an antifa meeting, those are always pasty pale white too. Its like using left wing white culture as a gated community to keep the minorities out, which is how they survive.
Its relevant to the discussion because that is basically your "because there's no stores there that interest them"
That's my local mall's strategy. Remember during the election Hillary wore these weird $8K Chairman Mao pantsuit outfits? There's a whole store at the mall selling those and they don't appeal much to the "hip hop urbanware crowd".
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:26AM
No msg.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:15PM
at ours.
I think they ended up merging a pair of Men's and Women's stores into one at one location, but the rest have closed. Furthermore Sears is awaiting K-Mart going bankrupt and then it will be gone too.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:48PM (2 children)
There's one of these near me. It gets tons of traffic even in the dead of freezing winter (well, such that winter is, these days). I actually went there at such a time thinking I'd enjoy seeing it empty, but was disappointed.
1. There's fire pits in some of the bigger intersections that give off heat; people hang around these. The biggest one has a gazebo-like roof/chimney thing.
2. There's a coffee shop a small one featured in the other big intersection besides the one with the gazebo, plus some other stylish self-serve cafe places that serve hot drinks (besides the restaurants).
3. People mostly seem to hang out at the theatre, the restaurants, the way-too-small/expensive boutique clothing/furniture stores, or around various handsomely decorated little squares.
I assume that's what the kids do these days. You'll note a lack of electronics or videogames or music or such though... all of the stores are clothing or furniture stores, and only one clothing store sells men's clothes.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:57PM
Philistines... Our fancy dancy outdoor mall has an Apple Store. And we have a bookstore that's literally as big as an aircraft hanger. They have music, videos, software, calendars, toys, a coffee shop, a yogurt shop, games of all kinds (RPG, Cards, Boards, etc.) and if you search real hard, you might find a book. Don't get you hopes up though, they're tough to find.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:23PM
Sounds similar to the one I used to live near several years ago. However, it had a giant Barnes & Noble: that's where you go for music these days, if you're a "dinosaur" who still buys it on CD (you can also go to Walmart, but we're talking about "lifestyle center" outdoor malls here and those don't have Walmarts). But games and music these days are almost always sold online so it makes sense there's no stores selling those now, except maybe for weird antique/vintage stores that sell old 8-bit consoles and games from the 80s (again, you won't find those in a trendy outdoor mall). For electronics, there's the Apple Store (a common fixture in trendy/upscale shopping centers), but that's about it; it's the perfect place to pay top dollar for a new set of Bluetooth headphones/earbuds to go with your new iPhone which doesn't have a headphone jack.
As for men's clothes, the outdoor mall I mentioned above did have a "Lids" (or is it "Lidz"?) store, since young men all seem to like wearing stupid-looking baseball caps these days. Most of the shops in that place seemed to be restaurants (both nice sit-down and cheaper ones) and expensive clothing stores, along with the anchors: B&N and the theater.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:39PM (2 children)
If you're a teenager, the mall was an attractive place to go.
Not these days. They have a loud high-pitched screeching noise playing that only teenagers are supposed to hear. So anybody under the age of 50 without a hearing problem. If you can hear it, it's proof you're a teenager and up to no good, even if your ID says you're middle age.
They have mall cops that will harass teenagers or anybody who's just short.
That's a lot of people they chase away from malls.
Me specifically, now that I'm all growed up, there are better places for me to hang out rather than putting up with that screeching or worry about whether a mall cop is going to think I'm a loitering teenager.
Now malls wonder why nobody goes? wtf! They didn't want anybody there!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:07PM (1 child)
Reminds me of a tale I heard some time ago, could be fiction but I found it interesting.
A local car dealership that sold expensive sports cars was successful while many rival dealerships in the same area were failing. The owner attributed his success to the fact that his business never shunned anyone who came in: often teenagers would come in, clearly with no ability to purchase the products (they just want to drive a cool car for a bit) but it did not matter to this dealer. They got to test drive just like any other prospective buyer.
Later, some of those teenagers become financially successful people who drive expensive cars. Where will they go to buy one? It won't be the dealership that told them to fuck off when they were younger, that's for sure.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday April 26 2017, @04:51PM
I use to do that. At the high end car dealers they would entertain you and let you test drive most things (never did get to take out a BMW Z8 or MB SLR) while the regular ones would often judge you and treat you like trash. What is interesting is that now as a fairly well off professional those same low end car dealers still will blow me off. For example when I had to replace my previous car I was driving around in my beater jeep for a couple of weeks and found that this still is the case. At the near by Maserati, BMW, Mercedes, and Aston Martin dealers they were happy to show me the car I was interested in and then would suggest that I not only take that one out for a test drive but that I consider some other much more expensive and/or fun car and bring that around as well. At the regular dealerships I would actively get steered away from the car I wanted to see and was often told that they didn't let people test drive those cars. So in the end I bought a used BMW from the Maserati dealer as that was the nicest car with the features I wanted in my price range that I saw.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:42PM (2 children)
A lot of them no longer allow the teens to hang out.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:13PM (1 child)
Have you ever visited a "diverse urban" public library? Its a daycare for non-white kids who run wild, pushing everyone out who isn't a kid enjoying free daycare.
The same thing happens at the malls.
"See, we're not racist, we don't allow any unaccompanied under age people of any race or color"
One of the local malls in a borderline area has a sign with a truly amazing curfew of 1pm, where after 1pm under 18 are technically allowed but only in presence of an adult.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:48PM
Actually, I have. It was a lot like any other library. So are most of the "diverse kids" at the mall.
It's mostly only a problem for the sort who whisper "those people" to their friends when they mean non-white.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:37PM (1 child)
because there really wasn't much else to do
I think we're about the same age. Same situation when I was a kid. The modern solution is hyperscheduling. At least two sports and a music instrument at all times, right? And don't forget scouts...
Another curiosity, when I was a kid, summer school was for the slow kids and I never went. Today they compete with Parks n Rec to see who can provide more Tai Chi classes. So my kids go to summer school and don't learn any academics, weird but true. "Playground games" is just organized gym class. There's actually a middle school class where the kids play board games all summer.
For parents of little authoritarianism, they can pay money to parks and rec to yell at their kids to silent read for an hour, which I find vaguely unbelievable, but true. I guess for a modern fatherless world there's moms who need a librarian to lay down the smack to get some reading done, but all I can do with that one is LOL, seriously, hiring a librarian to tell your kids to "STFU and read" for an hour... I'm like WTF speechless...
I never would have believed this in the 80s but here we are.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:59PM
The 80s were really a wonderful time compared to now. The dystopias predicted back then have come true.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:25PM (5 children)
People shopping at Amazon is one thing, but where are people going to just hang out? When I was a teenager, my friends and I frequently went to the mall to hang out, because there really wasn't much else to do, especially if the weather was lousy. We never bought much, except food at the food court, but we walked around and looked at stuff, hung out at the food court, etc. Even at older ages, it was fun to go there with an SO and window-shop, get a drink or a snack, maybe eat at one of the restaurants, etc.
When I was a teenager, I would go to a local park and play frisbee and/or smoke pot with my brothers and/or friends.
Otherwise, I'd hang out with friends at their houses and smoke pot, or sit for hours in coffee shops bullshitting with my friends.
If the weather was bad, I'd often go to a museum (I started doing that around age 10 or so). Sometimes I'd go to concerts at large venues or live music at bars and clubs (the drinking age was 18 back then, and even so it was lightly enforced. It was helpful if you were with a cute girl: they always got in and you with them).
On weekend nights, I'd often take LSD and wander around the big city in which I lived with similarly situated friends.
I *never* went to a mall. Actually, the closest mall was 13 miles away and at least 1.5 hours on public transportation. Besides, why would I want to go to a mall? It was just a bunch of stores and there were stores everywhere.
I'd also ride my bicycle almost everywhere. My parents (or others) never drove me anywhere. I did what I wanted, when I wanted. And had an after-school job to make money to pay for my drugs.
If I'd grown up in the suburbs, I think I might have committed suicide just from the boredom.
I suppose malls were better than nothing if you didn't have culture and drugs.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:36AM (4 children)
Congratulations on spending your youth doped up. That's definitely more worthy than what those boring people were doing _in the burbs_. I mean, you are going to call yourself superior to kids who spent Saturday sixpacking it because you prefer to smoke your buzz? Lame poser.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:11AM (2 children)
Congratulations on spending your youth doped up. That's definitely more worthy than what those boring people were doing _in the burbs_. I mean, you are going to call yourself superior to kids who spent Saturday sixpacking it because you prefer to smoke your buzz? Lame poser.
I never said I was superior, or had a better experience than others. It was just different.
I'm glad I grew up the way I did. That says nothing about other people. Just about me.
Bitter much?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:40AM (1 child)
You pretty much said it in your final sentences:
"If I'd grown up in the suburbs, I think I might have committed suicide just from the boredom.
I suppose malls were better than nothing if you didn't have culture and drugs."
The superiority is right there for all to see.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:45AM
The superiority is right there for all to see.
Your inferiority complex is showing, AC.
Have you considered therapy to address your insecurity issues?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 26 2017, @03:20AM
kids who spent Saturday sixpacking it
Oh, and I did drink my fair share of 40s [urbandictionary.com].
So take your self-righteous bullshit elsewhere.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr