I Hate Malls

[gemsmom]

I was talking to someone the other day about how much I dislike shopping malls and large department stores. I do not like walking forever to get from one store to the next, or walking forever in just one store to find what I need.

I can't be the only one who finds todays "big" shopping experience time consuming, exhausting, and unnecessary.

[Cliff Wilson]

I like Malls. They are a great place to exercise walk in the winter and if you have time to sit on a bench with a cup of coffee, some very interesting people go by.

Oh, wait a minute, you meant for BUYING things. Yeah, I think they're mostly just good for what my wife calls "Gooping." Which she says I am not allowed to do in restaurants!? :rolleyes: go figure.

[Framerguy]

Pam,

Don't even get ME started on the big megamalls!! I don't have one good thing to say about them, ............ nada.

Let's just start in their parking lots and go from there. All that once beautiful natural land, acres and acres of it, clear cutted, bulldozed over to change the natural drainage and contours of the land as it was, and then covered the whole danged mess with blacktop!! Now if THAT isn't a sin against nature, then I don't need to go out in the woods ever again!

These parking lots are so enormous in some cases that they have to be patroled by a separate security force hired by the mall management simply to keep patrons safe as they make an attempt to locate their car in that maze of parked steel and plastic. I have seen mall parking lots with shuttle vehicles running a route to take patrons back to the general area where their car might be located.

(I say "might be" because, if it is a new Beemer or a nice SUV, chances are it isn't there anymore but ripped off by some car stripper for parts.)

I will let somebody else tackle the interiors of these little financial eco-systems. I have to go take an Excedrin now.

Framerguy

[Sharonx]

My shop is in a downtown district. We are trying to revitalize it. I read an interesting article in the newspaper regarding the malls of the future. It seems some research group has studied consumer preferences. In todays busy world, people prefer to part in front of the store they are going into because it is more convenient and faster. So malls of the future will be built like strip malls and have different facades on each shop. Sounds like the old fashioned downtown areas to me. I agree about malls. I live 180 miles from the Mall of America and have been it twice. Way to big for shopping.

[JudyN]

I have a store in a historical downtown . Out of towners especially always comment on how much they love shopping downtown Bozeman. Our downtown is still very aalive.
My husband and I went to the Mall of America once when our plane was delayed several hours. The same stores as everywwhere else just more of them. We found it to be a real bore.

[Emibub]

I only go to malls if forced to......or if Pottery Barn is having a killer sale.

They seem to be designing more outdoor malls here too. In fact, there is a new shopping center here in Aurora that is built just like and old fashioned street where you have head on parking. It is all kind of charming to drive through but it loses it's appeal quickly when you see it is the same boring stores in every other shopping center. Payless shoes, Hallmark, Aaron Brothers etc. To me part of the appeal would be shopping in more diverse stores too. But the retailers of the world are seeing to it that we have the same bland choices on every street corner in America. As I've said before "No matter how you dress up Grandma, it is still Grandma".

[AWG]

This is the first holiday season in about 5 years that I did NOT serve time in a mall. It's SO wonderful going to work in our shop, -- not worrying about hordes of impatient shoppers, finding a parking space, working from 8a until 10p, listening to screaming kids and b******* parents, etc.....

I've hated malls for a long time. My aversion to malls and WallyWorld are the 2 main reasons I haven't done any Christams shopping yet ... (better get to Amazon soon!)

Tony

[Framerguy]

This mall thing has been nagging at me all day. I have done alot of travelling in my life and have been to many places that most would bypass in favor of more scenic places where the lights are much brighter and the entertainment is more lively. But, as I thought about some of these little towns and what they had to offer, one thing became evident to me, why these places stuck in my mind over the years, and that was the quaint offerings they had to offer their visitors.

Here is just a few examples from the Midwest area of the country.

Just outside of Chicago across the Wisconsin state line is a small town, Lake Geneva and close by another small town, Delavan. Both of these towns have done total renovations of their downtown areas to bring back the small shops and stores that we remember from our childhoods. In particular, Delavan had torn up the entire main street going through the downtown area and rebuilt it in the old cobblestone street with street lights that are the old 3 round white globe type on verdigris standards. They have wrought iron/oak slat benches in front of each store and tree plantings lining each side of the street. I spent many weekends in the Williams Bay area on the lake and I thoroughly enjoyed walking the streets of Delavan and Lake Geneva browsing through their small shops and artist lofts and I don't really remember seeing any large mega-malls near either town. I guess I never looked for them.

But I did make a concerted effort to find a place to move my frame shop into these towns at one time. Because of the ambiance of both of these little towns and the number of visitors that frequented them during the year, the rents were too high for me to consider moving there and trying to make a new start at building a business. But the feelings that I have for both of these towns will always be good ones.

On the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, there is the small town of Fairhope, Alabama. Same story there, quaint little downtown area lined with antique shops, art galleries, and very friendly people. I have gone to Fairhope for the past 6 or 7 years in March for their Annual Arts and Crafts festival and, as you pull off of Rte. 98 on the North end of town, you are greeted with a beautiful split road with large beds of tulips and neatly trimmed trees down the center median of Alt. 98. In the park and in front of many old homes are Azaleas in full bloom at that time of the year that are monstrous in size, some are 8' tall and 15' across.

Back where I came from there is the small town of Shelbyville. There is nothing noteworthy about Shelbyville except for the fact that, about 25 years ago, Wal-Mart wanted to open a store there. The people didn't want a Wal-Mart in their town. They put the idea to a public referendum vote and voted to keep Wal-Mart out of their little town. To this day, there is no Wal-Mart in Shelbyville to my knowledge.

My point is that we all live near some place that still offers a touch of small town living and we can find some comfort in visiting these little pockets of the past where small shops still exist. And you can enjoy an afternoon of strolling down the main street and browsing through individual stores without the hassle of all the name brand stores, parking problems, large crowds that have no idea of what real shopping is all about, and you can find unique items that aren't mass produced or made in some third world country.

You just have to get out there and dig a little bit to find them. And the digging can be very rewarding in more ways than would be imagined.

Framerguy

[Rebecca]

If you hate malls Pamela (me too), you would really hate Manila. Now I have never been there, but a friend of mine just came back and described it to me. She said she had never seen anything like it in her life.

The whole city is a mall. Everything is Walmart, Kmart etc.etc. It takes something like an hour and a half to drive 4 miles, but you can't walk anywhere because the homeless (and there are lots of them) live on the street, and they are open sewers. She said you literally can't walk anywhere, except in the malls!

She said a whole lot more about politics and corruption, but this is what really struck me.

Rebecca

[Less]

I've hated malls for a long time. My aversion to malls and WallyWorld are the 2 main reasons I haven't done any Christams shopping yet ... (better get to Amazon soon!)
???

I bet you have some wonderful independents that would appreciate your business.

Lets get out from in front of those catalogs and computer screens and mingle with your neighbors.

[Kit]

I would love to mingle with my neighbors to do my Christmas shopping but they're so homogenized that they don't have anything I want:

A jar of cashew butter (Vermont Country Store)

Three pair of extremely funky socks for the obligatory socks-and-underwear gift (FlaxArt)

A Navy pea coat (Army Navy Surplus)

A combination VHS-DVD player (available at BestBuy in Roch but they don't ship, nor would they arrange shipping for me from their Portland Oregon branch)

An antique writing slope (ebay)

An antique lithograph (ebay, but framed locally)

One of the very few shops in Roch that carry unusual gift merchandise is the one at which I work. We're having a very nice holiday season. Maybe that's why.

Kit

[Pat Murphey]

To those of you that have downtown stores,

Take a look at how medium and small cities and towns in Europe have dealt with "the Problem" of attracting shoppers to town. They closed their downtown streets to vehicular traffic (with ample garage parking nearby). The atmosphere is of charming towns, but the convenience rivals malls. The stores are of all varieties with convenient access. And, many people live in town above the shops. These towns and cities are usually vibrant and successful and much more attractive than their American counterparts. I know it would be a lot of work, requiring cooperation from many but, conversion of an American town would provide a pleasant alternative to mall shopping.

Pat :D

[lise]

Shopping malls are not my favourite thing now but for a different reason. November here was bitterly cold and guess where people were doing their early Xmas shopping? The warm malls!

[Bob Carter]

Reminds me of the Yogi Berra quip when someone asked him if his group still went to popular watering hole in NY. He said, "Nah, No one goes there anymore. It's always too crowded".

But then again do you think any of us could make any money if we had to rely upon our own set of demographics for a client base?

[JRB]

The reason shopping malls have the same boring stores, no matter where you are in the country, is because, WE, the buying public have voted for them with our hard earned dollars.

We all love the old fashion concept of "main street America," and there are some malls going up with that concept in mind. Problem is, the only businesses that can afford the rent on these stores, are the same ones you find in any other mall. Mom and pop can not compete with a large chains buying power.

You are not going to find their quaint little shop in the same contrived "main street" malls that you find an Aaron Brothers etc.

The only places you will find the quaint little shops we all love, but hardly ever spend our serious money in, due to the prices, is in actual old "main street" neighborhoods.

Sometimes you will find them in popular tourist areas, but mostly the real mom and pop stores are going to be where the rent is affordable for them. Should the area they are in become popular for some reason or another, chances are that their quaint little shop will be replaced with a chain operation.

We, the buying public are responsible for the success of the mega malls and chain operations.

We are now in the process of turning all those chain operations into " quaint little shops of the past" once again.

We are voting for Wall Mart, Cost-co, Price Club, Target, etc. with our voting dollars.

I would be willing to bet that in the next twenty or so years, you will see the mega malls being bulldozed and replaced with mega sprawl marts. That's were we like to shop now, saves us money.

John