Christmas shopping online

[GK4Herd]

I don't know how malls are going to survive. I'd say 90% of my Christmas shopping is being done online this year. It's the new dynamic.

My question is, how much is this going to hurt retail employment. The cost per sq/ft of retail space for large malls, from a cursory Google, is between $50 yo $100 per sq/ft . The average Sears for example has around 139,000 sq/ft. So, that is a lease between 7 million to 14 million per year. That doesn't include utilities, salary, etc.

As the older generation dies off and is replaced by generation raised on the internet, I'm not sure malls will be a viable businessman model in the future.

Just thinking out loud.

 

[GreenDuke]

It will be interesting which goes completely obsolete first, malls or car dealerships.

 

[i am herdman]

They are already dying. Mixed use living is what the younger generations like. Apartment/condo in a community with a few specialty shops around and maybe a movie theater and grocery store. They walk to it all.

The days of the Huntington Mall type stores are over. Of course whenever I visit that mall seems to stay crowded, but you don't see many malls like that left anymore.

I do 90% of all my shopping for Christmas on-line. The other day I was going to do an in store pick up and it was conflicting me watching a ball game. Instead they had free shipping and I said why fight the traffic and wait three hours to go get it. Right to my door two days later for free.

 

[HerdBuckeye]

Malls have been dying for decades. Here’s an interesting site chronicling all the dead malls.

http://deadmalls.com/stories.html

 

[WV-FAN]

Welcome to several years ago??

 

[mlblack16.]

Now's the time for mall workers to demand $15/hr wages, amirite?

 

[mlblack16.]

Speaking of the Huntington mall, I remember when I was in grad school and hit winter break. I needed a job to survive until spring semester started, so I got on at Circuit City. What a bunch of fvcking idiots worked there, including the sleezy managers.

I remember the first few days thinking I would just run over to Wendy's for my lunch break. It didn't take long to realize I was literally eating an hour of my wages each time I did that. I started packing my lunch from then on. However, the rest of the monkeys I worked with in the warehouse (they were the permanent employees) would go everyday and not think twice. Just another example of people not living within their means.