Posted Dec 24, 2023, 3:00 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: BC
Posts: 4,597
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheba
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From a longer article - Some Toronto malls are booming, but not necessarily because of the shopping
Quote:
To anyone who visits Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping Centre in the weeks leading up to Christmas, it would appear the death of the mall has been greatly exaggerated.
The parking lot is packed and so too is the mall as people explore its unique mix of high-end retail and array of non-retail "experiences" that most busy malls now include, such movie- and product-related pop ups and installations geared to photo-happy consumers. The two-million-square-foot property is the most successful mall in Canada, with annual sales of more than $2 billion.
"In the mall business, you always have to be fresh. You always have to think about what your customers are after and remain relevant for the customer," said Robert Horst, vice-president of retail at Oxford Properties, which operates Yorkdale.
"You want to bring them out of their chairs, off their sofa, into a space where they can shop. But it's important to create experiences that the customers will find unique, different and something that they can't do anywhere else."
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The operators of many regional malls, however, have been slow to embrace the idea that consumer expectations of malls are quickly evolving, said Canadian author Doug Stephens, who recently wrote Resurrecting Retail: The Future of Business in a Post-Pandemic World.
"They really need to revisit the whole notion of place-making and the entertainment factor of going to the mall," he said.
"It has shifted to either experiencing something, buying something, tasting something, or seeing something that you simply can't find anywhere else, particularly online. And frankly, most malls, not just in Canada, but in North America, really have not yet embraced that new mindset."
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