It’s going to be a make or break holiday season for the nation’s malls. Early in the fourth quarter, Corsesight Research predicted 25% of the roughly 1,000 malls will close over the next three to five years, but the current second wave of the pandemic will likely hasten their demise.
On November 19, the CDC put another nail in malls’ coffin when it announced “going shopping in crowded stores just before, on, or after Thanksgiving,” was one of the high-risk activities to avoid.
Americans are heeding the warning. A recent IBM survey found four-out-of-ten Americans are going to avoid malls until at least 2021.
Thanksgiving weekend results from RetailNext confirm IBM’s dire predictions. Mall-based retailers’ shopping traffic was down 44% from last year, greater than the -41% traffic plunge in non-mall retailers.
Since the pandemic broke, malls have taken a bad rap as places to avoid, despite the wide corridors, ample open space contained…
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