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<\/a>Due mainly to e-commerce, the future of\u00a0shopping malls\u00a0is uncertain, says Ian Lee, assistant professor at Carleton University\u2019s Sprott School of Business. He speculates that they will vanish completely in 50 to 100 years:\u00a0\u201cPeople will look at them with the same sense of wonder as we look at the cathedrals. \u2018Once upon a time, everyone went there on a Saturday morning, wow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet\u00a0the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) says that media forecasts of the shopping mall\u2019s extinction are distorted. The news doesn\u2019t always paint a complete picture, explains Jesse Tron, spokesperson and communications director for ICSC:\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s extremely overblown, and it is a bit sensationalized.\u201d\u00a0Tron says\u00a0that shopping malls tend to fail because of demographic and economic issues in the neighbourhood, not lack of interest in in-store shopping.\u00a0 He says e-commerce can never replace the full in-store advantages.<\/p>\n
In fact, some experts argue that digital\u00a0technology, while obviously competing with bricks-and-mortar stores, could also be harnessed\u00a0to keep those same stores in business\u2014mainly by attracting\u00a0customers into the\u00a0physical store. Features\u00a0such as\u00a0phone apps\u00a0could\u00a0actually\u00a0be\u00a0the saviour<\/em> of malls and other retailers. The reason: Corporate vendors\u00a0now have\u00a0the ability\u00a0to gather and sort vast amounts of customer information, making\u00a0it easier to target\u00a0consumers, and\u00a0also\u00a0the ability to\u00a0send information easily and instantly to customers,\u00a0offering them incentives\u00a0and helping them to\u00a0navigate the\u00a0in-store inventory.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s exactly what malls and retailers are trying to do. By offering information and deals to specific customers, they can improve the in-store shopping experience, says professor Lee.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s malls hope to increase foot traffic by creating a two-faceted experience, one that allows shoppers to interact with products in store\u00a0while still\u00a0giving\u00a0the perks of online shopping. Effort is being made\u00a0to\u00a0get people out of the house and into the mall, explains Chris Carder, co-founder of Kinetic Caf\u00e9, a Toronto-based innovation firm that\u00a0helps companies, including shopping centres, overcome obstacles in product services and customer experiences. \u201cAll the shopping centres are in real times of transformation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\nA hybrid shopping experience<\/h2>\n