Many of us probably remember what it felt like to get up early in the morning and make the trip to a shopping mall.
It used to be a really exciting venture.
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We’d set our alarms despite it often being the weekend, make the longer drive out to our closest mall, and spend hours traipsing through the area looking for whatever it was we needed.
Maybe it was back-to-school clothes.
Perhaps it was a prom dress, a pair of sneakers, a vacation wardrobe, or a new piece of furniture.
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Exciting as it may have been, we all kind of agreed that making this kind of trip was an undertaking. Some of us might have even felt inconvenienced and suspected there had to be a better way.
At the height of the American shopping mall, in the 1980s and 1990s, the average U.S. consumer spent 12 hours per month at a mall.
That’s a huge time commitment. Even if you’re the most devoted shopper in the world, 3-4 hours per week at one of these shopping plazas isn’t the most efficient use of time.
You’ve got to drive there, find a parking space, meander past (or through) a bunch of stores that don’t have anything for you, and often overpay for what you need.
Customers change how they shop
Some time has passed since the 1990s, though.
And we just don’t shop the way we did 30 years ago.
Many shopping malls across the U.S. now lie vacant or severely underoccupied compared to their heyday a handful of decades ago.
More closings:
- Famous retailer closing 20 percent of stores amid alarming trend
- Iconic 260-year-old retail chain closing down dozens of stores
- Struggling mall retailer closing more stores amid behavior change
- Troubled mall chain weighs a sale amid worrying customer trend
And for customers, that’s largely a good thing. The shopping experience has gotten considerably more user-friendly.
Many of us now visit closer or more affordable destinations to get our goods. That could be at an outlet mall, which are rising in popularity and prominence, thanks to their access to upscale and popular brands for discount prices.
Or it could be at a local big-box store like Walmart or Target, which are upping their efforts to provide customers with more goods (like fashion and accessories) at uncommonly low prices.
And of course, there’s the rise of online shopping.
While many of us may have wandered through a huge department store in the 1990s to find an outfit for an upcoming formal event, many of us now prefer to do the shopping online — where we know we’ll find far more selection at a fraction of the usual department-store prices.
Image source: Getty Images
Popular retail chain plans upcoming closures
Sometimes, no matter how many levers a brick-and-mortar retailer pulls, it just can’t seem to recapture the magic it once had.
Such is the case for River Island, a high street retailer popular among women for its clothing and accessories.
River Island, which is based out of the UK, has fallen on hard financial times in recent quarters.
In its last fiscal year, which ended in December 2023, the retailer reported a £33.2 million pre‑tax loss.
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It’s been undergoing a massive restructuring plan to avoid insolvency. And part of that plan involves closing stores and negotiating rent.
It will close around 33 stores by the beginning of 2026, according to The Guardian.
An additional 70 stores face an uncertain future as River Island attempts to negotiate rent terms, potentially putting them at risk, too.
Some stores are already slotted for a jarring closure.
One popular location in Banbury, UK, will close by the end of June 2025.
River Island CEO Ben Lewis explained that “the well-documented migration of shoppers from the high street to online has left the business with a large portfolio of stores that is no longer aligned to our customers’ needs.”
“The sharp rise in the cost of doing business over the last few years has only added to the financial burden,” he added.
