Usually I'd divide this into three posts, but it's interesting to place these articles together:
Wallflower Mall
aka love for the mid-market shopping center
It's difficult to know the complete history of an old mall, because who among us ever loves the place enough to write it all down? The mall lives or the mall dies or the mall lingers, and some malls seem to have a bigger destiny than others.
The Washington Post sent a reporter to the most under-rated, averege mall in Northern Virginia, Manassas Mall, to check out what things were like. Strangely enough, that place used to be my friend Angie's local mall and it used to house a Leggett department store, the same company my mom worked at for eight years, albeit at a different location.
Side notes: Contrary to what this guy says, I love malls enough to write down what happens. Now if I could just get that book started...Also, the article is partially wrong: the original anchors at Manassas were Montgomery Ward and W.T. Grant, not Sears and Grant as he suggested.
Better not mix man and mall
aka stereotypes and the columnists that milk them
You haven't seen true misery until you've looked into the face of some poor schlub forced to shop with his wife in a crowded mall. Stuffy stores, long lines, price tags and Christmas carols combine to suck the life right out of some boys.
True, but if malls provided something for averege men to do, or had stores that appealed to men, the problems would subside substantially. Instead, they chase after the same imaginary 35 year old middle income white women with kids while Rome falls and people spend their money out at Wal-Mart. Frustrating! Which leads me to...
The Bleeding Beast of Bentonville
aka die, Wal-Mart, die!
This is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year—for Wal-Mart. During the frenzied Christmas shopping season, the world's largest retailer's low prices and logistical might ought to crush the competition. Not this Yuletide. Last Saturday, Wal-Mart shocked the public and investors by announcing that because of a poor early Christmas, same-stores sales for November would rise by only 0.7 percent, instead of the 2 percent to 4 percent forecast.
Theories abound, but consumers make their decisions based on what they want and not what the investment community wants. The fact is this: Wal-Mart is still quite powerful and the dropoff in sales could be linked to unsureness about the economy, an overexpansion in certain geographic areas, a lack of product diversity from one Wal-Mart to another and the fact that they're not stocking very interesting merchandise right now. But that's just my opinion.
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