Shopping malls are divine places that cause countless visitors to lose sight of reason and follow their heart. The industrial revolution in the 19th century produced department stores that became greatly popular. Visiting department stores became a fashion that people looked forward to with excitement. Gradually, the cities became more crowded and dirty and there arose a need to expand. Department stores started moving away from the hype of the city and took up huge stretches of suburban land to build large chains of stores. This was how the shopping mall culture came into existence.

The concept of shopping malls is believed to be the modern adaptation of the marketplace of earlier times. The earliest marketplaces were not enclosed, but still had a collection of huge retail stores, service departments and parking areas. It became hugely popular when it began to contain restaurants; fast food places, theaters, banks, commercial offices and business establishments. A single management unit later controlled this huge set up. Many people welcomed this thriving culture of shopping malls with open arms from the beginning and others despise it even now. However, the vast majority just goes and becomes lost in this attractive maze of shops and food courts that are just waiting to grab you. When money is spent on something coveted, people feel in their heart, body and soul, that they have conquered something. There are people who love to blow their money occasionally and enjoy the fun of shopping. People come to malls not only to enjoy the thrill of shopping, but also to spend some time together. They can go around looking at hundreds of popular brands, products or services all under one roof. Some people come to shopping malls not just for shopping purposes but also to watch other people. The shopping mall culture was popularized by the youth who frequented them for entertainment purposes. People liked the idea of coming to one place where they could park their cars and come out with an armful of shopping bags.

Some shopping malls lured customers with their sheer size and became famous. However, the shopping mall culture that became popular in the 1950s was sadly hit during the recession of the past two years.

How do big malls survive during the recession period?

The recession was like a fast spreading cancer; it caused a chain of events that led to the shutdown of important pillars in the economy one by one. Many shopping malls were included in this mass shutdown. The customers who once packed the shopping malls quickly dwindled and finally the number of people visiting such malls became unbelievably low. The survival of the fittest rule applies everywhere. Small retailers lost their footing and had to shut down while the bigger fish learned to adapt to the changes in its surroundings, and continued to survive. The best way to survive during an economic crisis is to adapt your company to the changing trends and tastes of the consumers.

During the recession, people had to change their spending habits just to be able to afford the things necessary for survival. US retailers and mall owners were definitely going through tough times; nevertheless, some big malls survived the recession and landed with their feet on the ground without much loss. How did they do that? They did not panic and shut down as smaller establishments did. It is true that if your shop cannot sell you have to shut it down and look for a job elsewhere. You may even have to sell the shop for a small price and start some other business. However, bigger malls can afford to wait it out. People usually do not go on a spending spree during a recession period. However, as always there are certain things that individuals must have on a daily basis. The idea is to identify the needs of your costumers and supply it to them. The bigger companies decided to and could afford to wait until the negative publicity on recession abated before they went about selling their products and services.

Thousands of shopping malls gained public acclaim over the years. However, some malls truly stand out in the crowd in spite of the recession and bad times. Some of them are mentioned here.

The Mall of America located in Minnesota is the one that comes to everyone’s mind when they hear the word “mall.” It attracts some 30-40 million customers every year; it is awe inspiring with its stunning collection of 400 shopping stores, huge entertainment centers and hundreds of restaurants with cuisine from all over the world. It also houses 14 theatres-with a selection of digital and 3D theatres-and 7 nightclubs. It employs close to 12,000 people. The mall attracts toddlers and kids with its special events and invites them to a variety of games and programs. Tens of thousands of couples have chosen to get married in this mall. Their adventure aquarium and golf clubs are the spots that people never miss.

The Arizona Mills in Tempe, Arizona is believed to be the number one place in Arizona to shop, dine and watch movies. It is famous for its entertainment spots and shopping stores filled with popular brands and attractive offers.

Another place that will fulfill even the most avid shopper’s dreams and needs no introduction is Macy’s. No well-informed shopper has ever visited New York and forgotten to visit one of the Macy’s malls. You forget time inside this place and even though you have to walk a lot, you will not get tired of looking at the various products and displays. Portrayed as New York City’s largest shopping malls, it has never ceased to cater to the millions of men, women and children who go there to shop every week. Macy’s puts a kind of spell on its visitors from the time they walk through the doors.

Las Vegas in Nevada is a place known to everyone in all corners of the world. The glitz and glamor associated with the gambling world attracts people by the millions every day and to cater to their varying interests, many shopping malls have been built. The Fashion Show Mall is definitely a highlight in the scores of shopping malls Adorning Las Vegas. It is impossible not to be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Fashion Show Mall and its maze of stores, unique in their own way.

There is a shopping mall called Rodeo Drive in California that has nothing to do with cattle or horses. This is actually a shopping district where only big spenders can afford to enter. The shops are attractively designed and highly expensive; when you come here, you should be willing to spend a lot unless you just want to do some window-shopping. You can visit some of the fashion boutiques that contain the latest fashion trends and eat in some of the biggest restaurants if you have plenty of dollars to spare.

Florida is another place that is frequented by tourists and they never forget to visit the Aventura Mall there. It is believed to be the fifth largest mall in America and is the largest in Florida. The mall became highly popular with its chain of 250 stores. This mall is more attractive to kids because of the renowned Kid’s Club that entertains them with a number of activities and events.

The King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania with its funny name became one of the most upscale and conventional malls frequented by locals and tourists. Though it contains a lot of space in terms of square feet, it contains only 400 retail stores. You can visit this mall for the latest fashion techniques and upcoming trends in the beauty department.

Simon and Westfield is a well-known mall management company in the US. There is a huge chain of stores with this unique signature and the company’s profile is always improving with the ever-increasing number of consumers. Simon contains 295 shopping malls and 172 of them are enclosed. Simon and Westfield started branding their malls right when the idea of shopping malls was still in its infancy. Simon started focusing on special programs to cater to the interests of kids and teens alike. They also feature special programs sponsored by corporate partners that became hugely popular throughout the world. While Westfield started to rename all its newly acquired malls and properties, The Simon Property Group did not name its acquired properties with their brand name. In spite of this fact, both companies grew by leaps and bounds one through its brand name and the other by conducting star-studded events throughout the nation.

The Westfield Group’s managing director, Peter Lowly believes that by proper use of available resources a mall can come out of the recession crisis unscathed. Westfield remains the main shopping center when you consider the market value aspect. They believe in adapting themselves to the spending habits of consumers to survive the recession crisis. Westfield operations are the highest in Australia and the business is still successful there in spite of the recession threat.

The shopping mall industry churned out some good publicity with its attractive retail shops and fast food courts, but its woes started during the early part of the recession. Some of the malls became devoid of customers and many posted “vacancy” signs at their windows for the empty shops. The recession went on longer than anticipated and it crippled the sales department drastically.

Many of the properties that owned some of the big malls in US had to file for bankruptcy for its failure to re-finance loans. Their debt added up to billions of dollars which they could not payoff. Some of the malls that were viewed as viable ones began to shake and tumble down while still many of them continued to work through extended life support. Even they lived under the constant terror of having to face death and destruction.

There are several reasons why a small retailer or a local mall dies out. It could be because of the opening of larger malls in their neighborhood, which attract all of the smaller mall’s customers with its enticing offers and discounts. It is not possible to say that the recession is the only reason for the downfall of such malls. Some of the malls that fell on their noses during the recession period had it coming. When a new mall opens, there tends to be a lack of interest in the existing malls because people always want to check out something new. Therefore, the old malls must create new attractions to stay in business.

With the recession came loss of jobs and unemployment reigned supreme. This contributed a lot to the dwindling amount of mall goers. When customers stopped coming into shopping malls because of changing spending habits, the malls started shutting down, resulting in more job losses and unemployment became more rampant than ever.

Conclusion

What the small retailers can do to keep afloat during the recession is keep advertising their products and services, and be aware of their existing customers needs to make sure that they do not go elsewhere. They can find out the needs of the customers by conducting regular surveys and paying attention to what is actually purchased.

The best way to make your customers come back to you is to lure them with attractive benefits and offers so they receive quality products at economical prices. Since the small retailers live under the constant threat of closing down, they should always remember to fulfill what they promise because they cannot afford to lose a single customer.

Despite how well the mall brands itself, a collection of shops and stores never did connect to the shopper with something near human in scale and relationship. Corporate icons such as Ronald McDonalds from the hamburger empire, Wendy, or Burger King simply were not an option for a mall for the reasons of continuity and control. There was rarely a human face that the average consumer can relate to, except for the mall security, which was usually an outside vendor. So the branding consists of logo, names, and distantly emotional event such as holiday picture taking, concerts, and special openings.

The evolving social media platform of Facebook is a tool that lets the mall manager create a more human-like appearance for the mall without having to worry about the issues of a spokesperson and cost. By empowering the average consumer with a forum, the Facebook’s specialized mall page allows the mall manager to post events and information to a central location that people can check, much like a corporate website. However, because Facebook already has all of the technology built into its website, the mall manager do not have to spend a large amount of money to developed these critical tools. Technologies that were once expensive to own and costly to upgrade; electronic bulletin board, discussion forum, picture uploads, video-sharing and emails, comes standard and free with a Facebook account. In addition to the zero-cost of setup, Facebook also maintain all of the technology and enhances these features all the time, wit no cost to the mall managers.

Even with these reasons, mall managements did not embrace Facebook when it started because it was a new type of communication they had no experience with. Mall marketing evolved from mass communication to no communication. Social media represented a new challenge because the consumer now can talk back to the management and share what they talk about (and complained about) with their friend. Most mall managers thought having a forum where people can talk about the mall would turn their Facebook space into the world’s most public complaints department.

In fact, it was more a blessing for most malls. On Facebook, most malls found there are people who genuinely loved the mall and are unabashedly about promoting and defending the mall. There are also people with genuine complaints, which the smarter mall managers were quick to address it on the Facebook and report back any solutions. Mall vendor also found a forum where the consumer can give feedback, and they can test our promotions and talk to the consumer directly.

Of course, with any forum that has a healthy dialogue, there are those who will complain and offers negative comment without any sort of reason. To the mall management’s relief, people who use online forum take those snide remarks in stride. While the downer comments make the poster feel good, the reader are looking for useful information and opportunity to share the good news. Without having to encourage people to post, the negative comments are often ignored or counter by other users.

With the big hurdles of costs and control out of the way, mall managements are also discovering the power of social marketing. Facebook is an egocentric program that allows the user to become their printing press. When a user joins a mall’s page as a fan, their entire network is exposed to what they post. So when I join the mall webpage, all of my contact, all paltry 150 friends, can see what I post. When I post about a good experience at the mall’s café using a little known discount coupon, I had 7 friends who tried it within a week. This may not seem like much, but this is a way to increase the malls’ traffic without the mall management having to do anything!

This is free marketing.  In the old days, a direct mailing campaign of fliers and coupon was considered success if 2% of the recipients acted on the offer. This is a huge amount of money for a very small amount of return. With social media, the cost of printing and delivery drops to zero, and you still get the same result. Why would anyone not try that?

Another more advantage to social media marketing is the social aspect of the Facebook application. The way friends are linked to each other, sharing information (and by extension, experiences), they can explore other people’s world. Two friends will have some overlap in contacts, but not complete overlaps. When I post about a good movie review on Facebook at my local mall, some friends usually comment on it, and a few who live near by will add the group. When they join the mall group, their entire social network will become exposed to the mall. The more accurate albeit disturbing comparison is a virus. When you get sick, your family gets sick too. When you go to work sick, your coworkers get sick. When they go home, their family gets sick. With Facebook, you can infect your friends with good experiences, which in turn, allows them to infect others with it. It’s really germ warfare for the mind.

That pretty much describes how malls are using Facebook to create a sense of community and transforming itself to a town center once again. While it is a tool for the mall to market itself, but it is also a way for communal experience to be shared. The old saying goes, “When shared, sorrow is cut by half, and happiness doubled.” With Facebook, happiness at the mall is not only doubled, but doubled, and doubled, and doubled again.

Mall marketing is a tricky process. The mall management’s budget is spending to promote a diverse range of stores without over-focusing on just a few at the expense of other. The mall tenants pay the mall’s high rent because it is a convenient place to attract consumers, and the high public awareness draws in a wide range of consumers that many merchants can sell to. However, the traditional advertising of print media and television are not effective in communicating variety.

Rather than trying to communicate a variety of offerings, most mall management brand their property as a destination such as Towne Center (replacing town square) or Galleria (signaling a fashion boutique), rather than a collection of stores. This type of destination promotion consists of a central attraction or an activity-based feature. The central attraction model has an indoor area dedicated a child’s activity area, such as a merry-go-round, ice rink, or play area. Some of the mega mall has indoor roller coasters and more teenager appropriate diversions. The activity-based feature is more seasonal, such as Easter or Christmas photo stage where children can get their picture taken with a large bunny or Santa Clause. Some mall management goes even further in combining the destination and activity promotion into an unique space. Many malls utilize their spacious interior and temperature controlled environment to enhance the retail space as a walking malls, with mileage markers and walker friendly amenities. This model is especially in area with extreme weather conditions. (I walked through quite a few walking malls in Wisconsin during the winter.)

Like most businesses that have mastered mass communication such as print media, TV and radio, malls were slow to embrace the Internet. This is not the management’s fault but that of the technology. Most early Internet technologies were all mall killers; online storefront such as Amazon.com, price comparison sites and auction sites like Ebay.com. At the beginning of the Internet revolution, it was tough for the mall to utilize anything except the cumbersome email system. Most malls adopted the emails and only used it sporadically. Anchor stores such as the upscale department stores usually have more effective use of email to do season and sales promotion but the smaller stores were left out of this technology because of the initial cost.

With the evolution of Internet based communication technology, the Web 2.0 created a more personal way to connect people with ideas, and other people. The individualistic technology lets people effortlessly connect with other people through social network on a digital platform such as Myspace.com and Facebook.com. This allowed brand to engage people and allow people to engage each other. This also let people who are fanatical about the brand to become brand advocates.

Social Media for Recession

Marketing and promotion have always been the lifeblood of a mall. In this tough economy, most shops are feeling the strain and most mall managers are trying to drive even more traffic to the mall. Because people are spending less, mall management needs to drive greater number of visitors in order to help their tenants stay financially viable.

Pulling customers in is only the first step in the process. Once they are in, mall managers also have to work with the merchant to help consumer find what they want faster and more efficient. Often time, this involves the use of “insider info.” These are timely info about specials, giveaway, and limited time offer, and overstock items. Some are as mundane (and timely) as when the photo op stage has a half an hour empty slot that someone can bring their kids to. The old way was to put up fliers, poster boards, and help desk. The new social medial is rapidly replacing these passive efforts.

Mall management companies are finding social media to be effective during this recession as marketing and promotion tool. Facebook and Twitter are much cheaper to setup and use than the traditional corporate email system. The cost advantage comes in several factors. The management company’s using a third party service, so they don’t have to worry about hardware and technical cost. The messages are short, so they can generated more messages, at lower cost, and more important, with twitter’s hashmark system, all the mall tenants can participate in sending out their own message. This creates a network that all the mall tenants can use and does not require a dedicate staff’s time to manage. It allows consumer to do their work for them.

Does it really work?

Well, probably.

While there are no structured data, a recent study shows that company that include social media as part of their over al marketing program do better. Last year, Dell made $3 million dollar off their twitter feed program. This really should not surprise anyone. The more advertising you do, the more sales you get. Adding the twitter channel just open Dell up to another market for consumer, and communicate with certain potential customers in a format that they prefer. Convenient and a new market, of course it would increase sales.

It might also work on two different factors; portability and immediacy.

With the traditional print media, there is a long delay between when the company decides on the promotion to when the customer gets the info. Printing and mailing all slow the process down. In addition, the sheer volume of advertising that an average American gets will make sure very few are actually read.

Enters the powerful cell phone with texting and Internet capability.

Most social media systems are designed with consumer portability in mind. Twitter is a hybrid of an email list and cell phone texting. It allows people to receive and send ‘tweets’ (small message) that can be address to another email list from their cell phone. People can then receive it as a text on cell phone or their computer. This allows for immediate information wherever people are. This, in effect, turns every cell phone into an email sending and receiving device, and let’s people to direct message which everyway they need to. This is the power of social media.

Imagine you are driving home and your cell phone displays the following tweets;

Embrace the cause. Join payless as we take steps to fight breast cancer. Buy a bracelet today for ONLY $2 until the end of October.

3:21 PM Oct 19th from web

Southwest General Hospital invites you to a free seminar addressing breast health issues on Oct.10 at SouthParkMall between Sears & Bealls.

1:43 PM Oct 9th from web

Come join Radio Disney to celebrate National Family Health & Fitness Day this Saturday from Noon – 3pm. Music, Games, Prizes . . . all FREE!

12:31 PM Sep 22nd from web

GameStop is releasing The Beatles Rockband on tonight at Midnight! For more details, call us at (210) 923-5548.

12:37 PM Sep 8th from web

(All tweets taken from #southparkmallSA)

As a consumer, you can decide, based on these activities, if you want to keep driving home or drive to the mall. If you are already at the mall, you can look for events and sales that meets your interest.

Immediate useful. Portably convenient.

And the mall managers wish you would sign up.

(To be continued…)