The last time I walked into Fashion Square Mall, it felt like a twilight zone. The whole strip at the entrance has been closed down, and inside, there are only a handful of stores left. It’s a ghost town.
This could be due to a couple of reasons: it’s too inconvenient to shop in-person anymore, and a lot of the time, it’s safer to shop online.
Norman Shaw, Brenda Eschenbrenner, and Daniel Baier discuss this in a National Library of Medicine journal. “We find that convenience and efficiency, as well as security for some females, are important factors contributing to online shopping’s perceived usefulness and, ultimately, intentions to continue shopping online,” the abstract reads.
When shopping online, every size is offered in every color, and in-store, there are often stocking issues. Especially since the pandemic, it’s difficult for any business to keep available inventory because of supply chain problems.
People see this and choose to shop online for what they need. It’s a vicious cycle because stores decide they don’t need to keep everything in stock when people can shop on the website anyway. They end up directing people to the website to find what they’re looking for, which hurts the business of the franchise.
Especially in a smaller area like Saginaw, when most of the mall is already closed, people aren’t making a trip to the mall just to go to Aeropostale and Hot Topic. Most stores in Fashion Square have a larger website with larger inventory, so why not just shop online from the comfort of home?
Shaw, Eschenbrenner, and Baier’s paper also explained that oftentimes, people receive better customer service online. With a well-designed, easy to use website, customers often find themselves more satisfied than they are in-store.
It’s easy to place an order, pay, and be confident that the product will be delivered to your house. With in-person shopping, you drive to the mall using gas money or pay for transit without actually knowing that the product you want or need will be in stock, and then risk being dissatisfied with your experience.
On the other hand, you can easily search the product online to see if it’s in stock or in your size without searching a whole store and risking an unpleasant interaction with an underpaid associate.
Sure, you pay a shipping fee, but many customers feel that it’s worth it to have the product guaranteed to them.
Capital One, a banking company, performed a study to see how likely people were to shop online versus in-person during the fourth fiscal quarter—when many Americans are Christmas shopping.
They found that over the last 12 months, 32% of US consumers bought shoes online. 73% of online consumers are more likely to choose the “ship-to-home” option over “in-store pickup” even though they could get the product faster if they picked it up in-store.
They also found that only 45% of their customers shop primarily “in brick-andmortar stores”. These statistics are very interesting to me; I find it more convenient, and often cheaper, to shop online most of the time, but I enjoy the experience of browsing a physical store more.
It’s sad that malls are dead, it’s par for the course. It’s 2024, and most things are online — it makes sense that shopping would be too.
The biggest downside to this is seeing family businesses die. Most mom-and-pop shops can’t keep up with the online trends or social media platforms that embody online shopping. But, most people can’t afford boutique price when Shein and Temu are available.
It all depends, and none of it is cut and dry! Nonetheless, consider shopping a small business this week.
