History of the Shopping Mall
The tradition of a central location where shoppers have access to multiple vendors or merchants can be traced back to the street markets of the far east or the agoras of ancient Greece. The earliest outdoor shopping centers started popping up in California in the early 1950s. But the true indoor shopping center experience as we think of it today began in 1956 with the Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota... roughly 15 miles from where the Mall Of America now operates as the largest mall in the United States. The history of retail reaches back from the invention of currency in 3000 BC and the traveling merchants of old all the way forward to the digital marketplaces of today, but there have been few innovations during that time that have had the wide-reaching cultural impact that the modern shopping center has. Today, there are over 100,000 shopping malls in the United States alone.
As the popularity of the automobile increased, so did the popularity of the shopping mall. As people moved out from the city center to the suburbs, the shopping mall became more and more a cornerstone of the consumer's day-to-day life. Originally focused on strictly retail shopping, it was in the 1980s that shopping malls began to incorporate features like restaurants, food courts, and movie theaters, turning them from a purely shopping experience into community centers, places where people would gather not only to shop but for cultural activity and social interaction.
However, shopping malls, as they have existed for the last half-century, find themselves at a crossroads. Even before the pandemic, global trends were developing to cause shopping malls to change the roles that they play in the lives of consumers. Demographic trends such as an aging population, growth in urbanization, sustainability concerns, the e-commerce revolution, and the rise of digital technologies were already imposing changes on the way consumers interacted with shopping centers, and those changes will still need to be reflected in a post-COVID world.
The world of retail is changing drastically, but the shopping mall still has an important role to fill in our ever-changing society. Now, more than ever, property management companies and their retailers will need to work together to identify emerging trends and to create exciting reasons for consumers to return to in-store shopping post-pandemic in a way that creates a smooth, stress-free experience for all. When executed at their peak, these efforts will result in a destination that fulfills the functional requirements of modern life as well as our need to be social.
Property management companies and their shopping centers, in a post-COVID world will need to focus on safety and convenience by finding innovative ways to organize their stores, interact with consumers, collect payment and deliver products. They will need to rethink the role of retail in a world where customers won't arrive looking to browse, but will show up already knowing what they want, and will look at retailers to facilitate the purchase through an exceptional customer experience. Shopping centers need to evolve into new meeting places for the community. They need to become multi-purpose environments where people not only shop but find extensive leisure and dining opportunities as well as office, residential, and cultural amenities.