<story><title>Old-fashioned malls are beating Amazon in small-town America</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-only-mall-for-miles/2017/05/19/0571e478-39aa-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.d054face50e1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dkrich</author><text>To me it seems that malls aren&amp;#x27;t dying, there&amp;#x27;s just been a major shift in who shops at them. Malls that are in prime real estate that cater to wealthy shoppers are doing quite well. Just go to Tyson&amp;#x27;s Corner in Virginia, or Somerset Mall outside Detroit on any Saturday and you will see that the reports of brick-and-mortar&amp;#x27;s death are greatly exaggerated.&lt;p&gt;But with regard to stores like Sears, JCPenney, and Macy&amp;#x27;s, the problem is that whereas in the 1980&amp;#x27;s, just about everyone shopped at them for everything but groceries and would travel from long distances to do so, nowadays it&amp;#x27;s just people who live nearby and just a subset of them.&lt;p&gt;I think this notion that it&amp;#x27;s Amazon that&amp;#x27;s killing traditional retail has some truth but it&amp;#x27;s very much oversimplified. While Amazon is no doubt eating into the sales of stores in every industry, I don&amp;#x27;t think Amazon is killing JCPenney, for example. After all, how many people do you know who buy their jeans on Amazon?&lt;p&gt;I think what&amp;#x27;s killing clothing retailers is the prevalence of a large number of smaller, niche manufacturers. People no longer want to buy drab clothing off a rack, they want to buy from a particular brand. People either are price-sensitive shoppers who will go buy off the rack from TJ Maxx or Ross, or are at the other extreme and want expensive name brands and will buy direct from the source or a select set of online retailers that sell them. That leaves retailers like JCPenney and Macy&amp;#x27;s in kind of a no-man&amp;#x27;s land.</text></comment>
<story><title>Old-fashioned malls are beating Amazon in small-town America</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-only-mall-for-miles/2017/05/19/0571e478-39aa-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.d054face50e1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>acchow</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve noticed a prevalence of malls in some places which has not slowed down even in this supposed &amp;quot;death of the mall&amp;quot; internet future. Namely Canada (very cold winters - gotta stay indoors?) and throughout major cities in Asia (hot and humid summers - gotta stay in air conditioned indoors?). Malls in Asia are like small cities.</text></comment>