Posted Apr 5, 2021, 1:37 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: BC
Posts: 4,306
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vin
Many malls are failing in the U.S. due to the financial crisis of 2008 (eg. Detroit) as well as a drop of retail demand in sparsely-populated urban sprawl suburbs. One would be hard-pressed to find a failing mall in a commercial/retail urban centre anywhere in North America, or pretty much the rest of the world. Do those failing American malls also have Simons, Uniqlo, Saks 5th Avenue, Muji, etc etc waiting to enter the market? If not, then quit using the U.S. as an excuse to curb and stagnate our own retail growth potentials.
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Yeah it's an old quote but it ties in to an article I just read. We can be glad we're 'under-retailed' compared to the US...
The death of the American mall was a warning sign that our dystopian future was closer than we all thought
Quote:
As vaccines roll out across America, thousands of people aren't getting vaccinated at CVS pharmacies or local health clinics. Instead, they're heading to abandoned Kmarts, Sears, and Toys R Us stores to get their shots.
For American companies that have seen store counts collapse in recent years, the symbolism of having abandoned stores turned into mass vaccination clinics highlights how quickly the world was changing before the pandemic, and how COVID-19 accelerated a shift to an unfamiliar and sometimes dystopian future.
The end of the COVID-19 pandemic might be in sight as vaccine shots ramp up, but crumbling malls, the country's haphazard approach to healthcare, and brands looking to capitalize on the "new normal" suggest our new dystopian reality is here to stay.
The last decade has seen American cultural touchstones disintegrate as part of the retail apocalypse.
Companies like Sears and JCPenney spent over 100 years building their brands into household names — but it took only 10 years for an apocalypse to sweep through the retail industry, leaving vacant stores and dead malls in its wake.
The demise, like so much in the last decade, can be linked to the financial crisis: After the housing bubble burst in the late aughts, many retailers were never quite able to get back on their feet. Hundreds of thousands of employees were out of work, and private equity stepped in, burdening mall brands with massive amounts of debt.
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A report from Coresight Research cited by CNBC last August estimated that out of roughly 1,000 American malls, a quarter will close down in the next three to five years.
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In what is perhaps the cruelest twist of irony, Amazon reportedly held talks with Simon Property Group, the biggest mall-owner in the US, to discuss converting empty retail space into fulfillment centers that pack and ship Amazon orders.
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