Covid has had a substantial influence on the way the world works. Working remotely is normalized, snow days are now “virtual days”, traveling internationally was completely restructured, and online shopping became bigger than it has ever been. E-Commerce sales increased by 43.2% in 2020, and has been doubling since.
Many companies saw the increase in online shopping as an opportunity to expand business, offering at-home delivery and improving delivery options. Along with people making more online purchases, Tik Tok became a heavy influencer of micro trends. This accelerated the fashion cycle and caused retailers to quickly adapt to ever changing trends.
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The death of shopping malls can be summarized into three main categories; decrease in foot traffic, maintenance costs, and fast fashion.
The large decrease in foot traffic has led mall vacancy rates to be around 11%. Covid led people to feel less comfortable going out and gathering in large crowded spaces, which is exactly what malls used to be. Nowadays people are able to shop online and access a wider spectrum of products, and also not have to worry about being able to find their size in store when all of them are available within a click.
Due to the large decrease in foot traffic in malls, the establishments themselves are also struggling to keep up with the various costs that come with maintaining that large of a functional environment. Malls are now struggling to keep up with paying staff and also paying the large number of bills that they are faced with. Stores that are doing well online have no appeal to rent out a space in a mall, so the malls are no longer receiving that additional income.
Fast fashion has to be the biggest fashion cycle killer of them all. When it comes to a physical store location, it is required that they keep up with stock, but also get rid of older items. When a brand is paying to keep hundreds of stores fully stocked with what is trending, there also comes the loss of items that are no longer trendy. This leads to marking down the clothing at an extremely discounted rate to just be able to get it off the store's hands.
I find it sad to see that shopping malls are now a dying breed. If you reflect on the 90s and early 2000s, malls were a key aspect of society. People would go there to get food, hang out with friends, go to arcades, and shop around. It has now been projected that within the next 10 years, there will only be 150 malls left in the United States.
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