Mall closures are on the rise, no thanks to its competitors utilizing new technologies available, such as online shopping. They need to adapt to changing times to survive the mall industry's current landscape, especially during this time of a global pandemic.
Mall Closures Happening Around The Country
Years before the current times, mall complexes have been the staple of American suburban culture. Once a prime for most investors and owners, now most are leaving this business industry, either due to their mall brand going out of style or being out shadowed by modern shopping ways of today like online shopping from eBay and Amazon, to name a few.
Sadly, the latter is the major problem that many mall owners and investors face during these current times. Previously recorded in 2012, more than 1500 malls are present in the country than the 1000 malls left, which is a third of it. According to CNBC, major mall brands have already said goodbye to the public, and experts fear that many will follow suit in the next 3 to 5 years.
Aside from the online shopping competition, the global COVID-19 pandemic's current threat may add another nail to the coffin for many mall complexes in general, hastening mall closures even more. Unless mall owners and their investors get creative, they will surely lose this battle for survival in this type of industry. Mall closures will be imminent unless they attract the shopping-public back within its arms.
The Additional Threat of COVID-19
The current threat of COVID-19 has seemingly halted most malls in its tracks, as the government has strictly controlled how the public can move in and out of their homes to avoid widespread infection. This was very noticeable during the first few months of lockdown, forcing many malls to close and shut down their operations during quarantine periods.
According to USA Today, malls that don't have significant name branding will be most likely affected by this, while major malls might survive long enough, avoiding closure thanks to that. Big-branded malls will most likely adjust to the online shopping competition while making enough profits to survive the ongoing pandemic.
Not Just Malls, Other Forms of Retail As Well
Aside from malls, which is considered a form of store retail, many other store retailers are expected to close due to the pandemic and the competition itself. Over 25,000 stores (malls included) can likely close down, according to Bloomberg. The most likely to be hit first with this kind of closure would be the department stores of struggling malls, wherein clothing shops would follow next.
Even though restrictions are being relaxed slowly to restart the crippled economy, many retail struggle to get up to their knees; malls aren't exempted from this. Many are still closed or have only limited services, and few shops are opened to serve customers. This also means that many cannot go back to work in malls due to the mentioned services and shops earlier.
