Long before retail was impacted by social distancing, the American mall was fighting for survival. Early signs of this were everywhere: perpetual discounting and promotion, insufficient staffing, stale inventory, and outdated storefronts. A number of these retailers are highly-leveraged assets, a culprit even a junior financial analyst could identify. As a result, a deluge of layoffs and closures began within two weeks of foot traffic falling. What will a healthy retail ecosystem look like when normalcy returns?
Think back to your youth. When you visited your local malls in in the 1990s or early 2000s, they resembled marketplaces of vendors and major retailers. It was a living and breathing brochure of SKUs. Back then, storefronts didn’t require special features, personality, or experiential qualities. Consumers were there to discover, to shop, and to transact. Today, the malls that are still ascendant are something different than what we remember. The malls that failed to evolve are crumbling beneath the weight of changing consumer preferences, personal technologies, and faltering specialty retailers.
