For me, the decline of malls was when they drifted away from a wide diversity of stores for different interests-- the Radio Shacks, the toy stores, the fancy hi

For me, the decline of malls was when they drifted away from a wide diversity of stores for different interests-- the Radio Shacks, the toy stores, the fancy hi-fi retailer, even the chain bookstore and the department stores that still had broad ranges like Sears-- into 80% clothing, and the obligatory Hallmark and Spencer Gifts. It was no longer "we can take care of several different errands today, let's bring the family and make an outing of it." Maybe that was just the effect rather than the cause: clothing survived because it's one of the hardest things to move online, likely because people are concerned about fit and annoyed about having to return goods. Judging by the catalogues my family gets, plenty of mail-order clothing houses seem to be stuck in the 1980s-- expensive shipping, pay return shipping-- like they don't feel like they're competing with Amazon or Shein. Even with vendors that handle it better, it's a customer friction thing, they may not want to buy 10 pairs of shoes or shirts in marginally different sizes and return eight and worry about the charge sitting on their account until the return is processed. To me, the killer feature would be vendors that offered truly consistent sizing. I don't have to doublecheck every M3x12 screw I buy to make sure it's not 14mm, why do I have to try on every pair of pants to make sure a "42" is a "42"? Measure myself once (or every time I gain or lose 5kg) and anything on the site fits the same way. Return rates and purchasing risk drops dramatically. Then I never need to step into a clothing store again.