Retail’s Biggest Breakup: America and the Mall
The phrase ‘shop till you drop’ no longer holds the same significance it once did in the American consumer culture. What was once a vast marketplace crowded with eager shoppers and seemingly endless rows of stores now appears to be a deserted wasteland. Signs are scraped off of storefronts and replaced with ‘for rent’ posters plastered over the faded lettering, and metal grates are permanently covering the doorways, keeping people from entering the stores with barren shelves. The bustling food courts now have two options left, if you're lucky, and are filled with chairs and tables waiting to be sat in.
Now, you may be asking what exactly happened to all the mall shoppers of the ‘90s and 2000s who would spend their free time wandering around malls, giggling with friends who encouraged their spending habits. That answer could stem from a lot of different places, but the most prominent comes from the devices we use on the daily, our phones.
Going to the mall used to be an activity that would take up your entire day, encouraging you to spend all your time and hard-earned money in the many retail chains that they had lined up for you. Now, it could take you 15 minutes to look through the remains of the desolate building. Big retailers that gained a majority of their profits from their physical locations are forced into bankruptcy because they can no longer keep up with the booming market of the online world.
Over are the days of window shopping and fighting for a cute top you spotted from across the store; the act of mass consumerism has found a new home, and it's on your couch. Nowadays, if you’re looking to upgrade your style, the first place people turn to is their phone. Buying new clothes has never been easier than a quick Google search and a click on ‘add to cart’.
There are no more disappointing scenarios where you are looking through racks and racks of clothing before you find the cutest sweater you’ve ever seen, only to have to hunt for that price tag that's waiting to tell you how overpriced it is. Alerts about sales pop up in your inbox, telling you about the perfect moment to buy that item you’ve been eyeing. Even returns can be done with a few clicks instead of the hassle of driving 20 minutes to your local store and waiting in a seemingly endless line of people waiting for their turn with customer service. Literally everything you could possibly need for the shopping experience is now available at your fingertips.
Online shopping is one of the most accessible forms of mass consumerism there is. It makes it plain and simple to see what a retailer has to offer, and it is often a lot more than they have in a physical location. You don’t need to wait weeks for new products to be brought up from the back or for an item you want to come back in stock because they're now held in warehouses waiting for you to click that ‘purchase’ button.
Even while scrolling on your social media account, if you hover over an item that you want, it will bring you directly to the site where you can buy it. Buying a new outfit has never been easier, and you don’t even have to leave the house to do it.
The online world has taken over the shopping sphere. Everything and anything can be bought from the internet, making the act of going out to buy something feel redundant. With the growth of technology on the rise, and having no end in sight, the disappearance of physical stores is almost entirely inevitable, which means the death of mall culture with it.
XOXO, The Fashion Stock Market
