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Interesting point you bring up. With e-commerce, I am surprised that malls can work at all. There is a brand new, massive and beautifully designed mall in The

Interesting point you bring up. With e-commerce, I am surprised that malls can work at all. There is a brand new, massive and beautifully designed mall in The Netherlands called Westfield Mall of the Netherlands. I went there once to quickly grab something and I got hopelessly lost, even while my phone navigation actually was able to display and navigate the layout of the mall, due to the sheer size I underestimated the navigational challenge my little trip would pose. The mall really blew me away with its beauty and I am still completely flabbergasted how this can work financially, I perhaps incorrectly assumedthat everybody is like me, ordering everything online. Although hard to believe, your argument may actually have a lot of thruth in it.

throwaway2037 3y ago
I had to Google about that mall. There is a separate Wiki page! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfield_Mall_of_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfield_Mall_of_the_Netherla... > Total retail floor area 117,000 m2 (1,260,000 sq ft) > Parking 4,000 That retail floor area is enormous! And, LOL: If this was US, parking would be 10x! FYI: Westfield is a huge global mall developer. Before 9/11, they ran the mall under NYC World Trade Center. It was one of the highest grossing retail spaces in the world. They must have done a lot of market analysis before they built that mall in the Netherlands.
- ljlolel 3y ago
  Westfield has a huge mall in SF and Paris center I’ve been to
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  That's not really enormous. It's big compared to most buildings, but ~1million sq ft of retail space is just about the minimum viable mall today. People aren't going to the mall to fulfill a specific need, they're going for the variety. It's hard to cram enough variety into much less space than that. For context, Valley Fair, Westfield's mall in San Jose, has 2.2million sq ft, and looking through their list of holdings, it doesn't look like they operate any malls smaller than a million sq ft in North America.
giarc 3y ago
Malls provide a few benefits and attract some key shoppers in my opinion. Many malls near me open at 5am to "walkers". Basically seniors looking for a place to walk indoors. They often populate the food court once it starts to open. When I'm in a mall, many shoppers are older adults (remember, they didn't grow up with same day shipping and one click checkout). Lastly, as a parent with kids, there's huge benefit to holding up a pair of pants to my 3 year to see if they will fit. A 3T size from X clothing company is very different from a 3T from Y clothing company. We pretty much buy 100% of our kids clothes from a mall. These are just 3 examples of heavy mall users, I'm sure there are many more.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Westfield's basically the only company left making money on malls, because they made a crucial observation: The anchor store is dead. Sears, Macy's, etc., they're in direct competition with Amazon, and they're losing their shirts. Most malls had made huge concessions to these anchor stores, operating under the assumption that they were why anybody goes to the mall, but Westfield pushed the opposite: People go to the mall when they want attainable luxury. People going to the mall in the 21st century aren't going there because they need something specific. People go to the mall to see a wide assortment of luxuries, recreational activities, and food options, so that they can treat themselves a little. Board game shops, brand-specific retailers like Doc Martin or Abercombie, Lego stores, jewelers. And it works. Walking around Valley Fair (Westfield's flagship location in San Jose) is fun. You can wander the place for a good long time, being presented with a seemingly never ending array of frivolous luxuries, and even if you don't end up buying any clothes or jewels or whatever, you can swing by the food vendors for some fancy ice cream at Salt 'N Straw.

throwaway2037 3y ago

I had to Google about that mall. There is a separate Wiki page! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfield_Mall_of_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfield_Mall_of_the_Netherla... > Total retail floor area 117,000 m2 (1,260,000 sq ft) > Parking 4,000 That retail floor area is enormous! And, LOL: If this was US, parking would be 10x! FYI: Westfield is a huge global mall developer. Before 9/11, they ran the mall under NYC World Trade Center. It was one of the highest grossing retail spaces in the world. They must have done a lot of market analysis before they built that mall in the Netherlands.

ljlolel 3y ago
Westfield has a huge mall in SF and Paris center I’ve been to
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
That's not really enormous. It's big compared to most buildings, but ~1million sq ft of retail space is just about the minimum viable mall today. People aren't going to the mall to fulfill a specific need, they're going for the variety. It's hard to cram enough variety into much less space than that. For context, Valley Fair, Westfield's mall in San Jose, has 2.2million sq ft, and looking through their list of holdings, it doesn't look like they operate any malls smaller than a million sq ft in North America.

giarc 3y ago

Malls provide a few benefits and attract some key shoppers in my opinion. Many malls near me open at 5am to "walkers". Basically seniors looking for a place to walk indoors. They often populate the food court once it starts to open. When I'm in a mall, many shoppers are older adults (remember, they didn't grow up with same day shipping and one click checkout). Lastly, as a parent with kids, there's huge benefit to holding up a pair of pants to my 3 year to see if they will fit. A 3T size from X clothing company is very different from a 3T from Y clothing company. We pretty much buy 100% of our kids clothes from a mall. These are just 3 examples of heavy mall users, I'm sure there are many more.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

Westfield's basically the only company left making money on malls, because they made a crucial observation: The anchor store is dead. Sears, Macy's, etc., they're in direct competition with Amazon, and they're losing their shirts. Most malls had made huge concessions to these anchor stores, operating under the assumption that they were why anybody goes to the mall, but Westfield pushed the opposite: People go to the mall when they want attainable luxury. People going to the mall in the 21st century aren't going there because they need something specific. People go to the mall to see a wide assortment of luxuries, recreational activities, and food options, so that they can treat themselves a little. Board game shops, brand-specific retailers like Doc Martin or Abercombie, Lego stores, jewelers. And it works. Walking around Valley Fair (Westfield's flagship location in San Jose) is fun. You can wander the place for a good long time, being presented with a seemingly never ending array of frivolous luxuries, and even if you don't end up buying any clothes or jewels or whatever, you can swing by the food vendors for some fancy ice cream at Salt 'N Straw.