How are the shopping malls in your areas?

[Deja Q]

Yesterday night and today (early evening) seemed fairly quiet; not busy like I'd expect them to be.

Lots of traffic on the freeways, but little actual time in stores.

Maybe people got their credit card statements? :shrug:

[cry baby]

1. One really nice mall around here seems like a ghost town.

I don't see how it's still in business. Other malls that I know of are doing ok.

I'm in Nashville.

[juliana24]

2. Looking bare here. Seems like Costco and Walmarts are full though.

I guess the heating bills came in the mail.

I know ours was out of sight !

[f-bush]

3. Ours got shot up by a poor young man........

...........who was ridiculed and beat up by the cops at a camp for underpriveledged kids when he was a young teenager.

[BeTheChange]

11. You forgot the "while he was high on meth" part...

I dunno if I have alot of sympathy for a "poor young man" who went on a drug binge and then decided to go shoot up a shopping mall in protest.

Wouldnt it have been more pertainent to his excuse if he had shot up a donut shop or a police station?

And wasnt the camp actually because he was a juvenile delinquent?

[f-bush]

22. No, No and No.....

There was no report of him being on drugs, and he was at a police sponsered camp because he was living in a very poor section of our town and was from a low income family.

Didn't hjave anything to do j.d.

[BeTheChange]

24. Wha?

Several of the hostages said he admitted to being on Meth... Here is one story, but we watched with horror as the story unfolded too.. being in the area and all and the subject of him being on a bender was mentioned many times.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5360133p-4850569c.html

I dont know anything about the details of the summer camp... but he was a juvenile delinquent who had a pretty decent rap sheet for his age.

I dont feel sorry at all for that kid. Thank God nobody died although the gentleman who can no longer walk very well may wish he had.

[f-bush]

26. Don't get me wrong....

I don't want to defend the kid...what he did was reprehensible. All I am saying is that he was mistreated by the cops most of his life. The camp he went to whether or not he had a j.d. jacket or not, was not a camp for incarcaration or punishment.

The cops ran the camp to make themselves look good, taking poor kids there and then trying to brain wash them into a "cop" like mentality. Those who didn't buy into the program, were picked on and ridiculed.

Makes one really want to accept "law and order" at that point?

What I was getting at first and foremost is that we need to really think how we treat fragile young impressionable minds. Nuture and affirmation would probably go a long way to reducing violence in our society.

Right now we live in a very mean spirited country which attitude is seriously enhanced and promulgated by the repubs.

[obxhead]

4. I, myself do not "do" malls, but I would say a large

drop off in clientele in January would be typical in any economy. We Amerikans always go too far for x-mas it seems and "bite the bullet" in January.

As a thought another industry to watch for economic forecasts would be the casual/fine dining restaurants. I'm in the industry, thats why bring it up. It seems to have dropped off far more than usual for the season.

[Jane Austin]

6. As a retailer what I'm noticing is that some of our best manufacturers

have gone out of business or are cutting back the number of products they sell.

These were great products that sold like hotcakes for us. Kingsheart Forge and Continental Creations are the latest, but Sandicast was sold last year and they've sent a long list of discontinued items.

[obxhead]

9. I've only heard of Sandicast...

But I follow what you're saying....

Prior to returning to the restaurant service industry I was involved in retail automotive paint sales. Everything has been turning upside down in that industry for the last 4 years... some technology driven, most driven by cost of manufacture and expected return of profit.... It seems that the margin of "people that would normally get their car fixed after an accident" got much smaller in the last few years. Many more seemed to just decide to drive around with that bent fender and take that insurance check for themselves. I viewed this as a big forecast of the coming economic times.

[Jane Austin]

17. We acutally sold more Kingsheart Forge (metal garden sculptures) and

Continental Creations (dog breed lamps, tables, candle holders, etc) than we do Sandicast.

We've had several other vendors either cut back or cease production in the last couple of years, but these are just the latest.

Meanwhile, all three Mervyns department stores here in Austin are going out of business.

Mervyns is where I got basic clothing - - underwear, slippers, socks and tees, as well as kitchen appliances and accessories. Their towels, sheets and comforters were good quality and reasonably-priced, too.

I think the Kohls stores may have been too much competition for them, but Kohls is way more expensive than Mervyns.

I hate to see them go.

[EC]

5. I'm sure seeing fancier cars in the K-Mart and Save-A-Lot

stores lots...which tells me upper middle class is starting to hurt...

[SoCalDem]

7. Our mall was built over TEN years ago and there are still

large spots that have NEVER been occupied.. The smaller stores might as well be on the escalator..they are constantly opening and closing..

The largest unoccupied space was supposed to be a Broadway..which was gobbled up by May D & F, which was transformed into Robinsons-May..(all before the place opened).. and since Robinsons had already contracted for an anchor spot, the empty space was bought by Bullocks..which also folded before the mall opened..

Our mall has NEVER been busy..

we have a Penneys, Sears, Robinsons,Gottschalks and assorted crappola stores.. Payless shoes, the little foo-foo accessory stores.. we have a mediocre cafeteria and a nauseating food court..

[lazarus]

8. back when I managed retail

late January and February were by far the worst sales times of the year, for precisely that reason. Credit card statements from Clausmas come in, and folks realise they're way in the hole.

It's worse now, with the economy in the toilet.

[madeline_con]

10. I'm guessing full of delinquents on cell phones, as usual. eom

[spinbaby]

16. Ours, too

No shoppers that I noticed, though, when I popped in the other night. The whole mall--everything--seemed to be on sale but no one was buying. A couple of the giftware stores were having going-out-of-business sales and a kitchen-gadget store had already shut down.

You know, 20 years ago, you could buy useful stuff at the mall. They had a drugstore, a hardware store, and other stores that sold actual useful stuff. Nowadays, they only seem to sell cheap overpriced clothing, cheap overpriced jewelry, and a lot of stuff in the "giftware" category. No wonder no one wants to go to the mall anymore.

[flygal]

19. I noticed that too

besides Penny's there isn't much for your home - just trumped up superficial junk and horrible food.

[renate]

12. I know this isn't an answer to your question, but

I haven't been in a mall more than three times in the past five years.

I used to go all the time, when my husband's job was--well, I think pre-2001 is all the adjective needed--and I had some time to kill between classes. Then his job became post-2001 and I started going to Goodwill....

Goodwill is awesome! I would never retail-therapy shop anywhere else unless there was something specific I needed (and for that, I go to eBay--saves so much time!). I do enjoy shopping for fun as well as for necessity (for necessity, it's mainly blue Costco!), but at thrift stores you can get so much for the price of one new unnecessary thing at the mall--then when you get tired of it it's easy to donate back to another charity without thinking "I really should wear that a few more times since I spent $X on it." (I actually almost never donate to Goodwill because the CEO of the local Goodwill branch makes so much money,* so I give things to an organization that distributes the stuff for free. It's a religious group, but they walk the walk, they don't just talk the talk--it'd be nice if the religious right did the same thing.) Financially things are much better than they were, but boy howdy I broke that mall habit for good and don't even want to go back.

* http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1135050924171710.xml&coll=7

[FlemingsGhost]

13. I haunt the Portland GWs, myself

Broadway and SE 7th, mostly.

See you there ...

:hi:

[anitar1]

14. I rarely go to malls. They seem to have the same

stores all over the country. I try to shop local , but am definitely not spending as much as I was a couple of years ago. Neither are my friends and family. Also we do not eat out as often. Don't really miss it either. It is easy to get out of the habit.No more credit car spending for me . Everything paid off and I have kicked the card habit too. Feels good.

[fasttense]

15. I rarely go to the mall.

Except when one of my teenagers need something I can't find elsewhere. I was never much of a mall rat. But I did notice many more fancy cars in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Seems some of the upper middle class are broke too.

[carolinalady]

18. I was at our one and only indoor mall here in Wilmington. It was

crowded and I did not see very many fantastic sales.

[Nikia]

20. I thought that it was just winter hibernation

That seems to occurr up here in Wisconsin. Except for Christmas shopping in December, fewer people seem to out compared to the warmer months. Even when I worked at a fast food place, which would be less affected by people having less money, winter months were our slowest months.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Usually avoidable

[KitchenWitch]

23. We were at the Mall of America yesterday

and it was CROWDED. (we had some gift cards from the holidays to some of the merchants...)

[bridgit]

25. expansive and filled with commerce...