SHESPEAKS Your Power to Influence

You may remember a time when the mall was the place to be on the weekend for everyone from bored teens to adults looking for a little retail therapy. But as internet shopping becomes easier and more popular, American malls are becoming something of a wasteland.

CBS News reports about the downfall of shopping malls and asks whether there is any hope for the survival of what once was a pretty bustling public space. Robin Lewis, author of “The New Rules of Retail”, describes the rise and fall of these shopping meccas. Somewhere around 1,500 malls were built between the years 1956 and 2005, but there haven’t been any new malls constructed since 2006.

Lewis explains how the rise of online shopping is to blame for the failure of malls saying, “All of a sudden, the consumer now has every single retail store throughout the world a key tap away.” But does this mean we will soon say goodbye to shopping malls forever?

According to successful Atlanta mall owner, Jose Legaspi, his business is alive and well and he owes it all to his ability to give the consumers what they can’t get online. Legaspi transformed a run-of-the-mill shopping mall into Plaza Fiesta which caters to a very large and growing Hispanic population. Legaspi’s shopping centes has 280 shops, but also includes some stops you wouldn’t normally expect to see in a mall like a doctor’s office, hair dressers, dentists, and money wiring services.

Legaspi explains how he also provides musical entertainment once a week for anyone looking to relax and hear some tunes. He very simply describes how others can take a cue from his success saying all they need is , “Experience. Entertainment. If we're going to drag them away from their smartphone and shopping on the Internet, you've got to give them a reason to spend the time to go and make the effort to go there. And the only way they're gonna do that is if there's a fun thing going on.”

Do you still shop at the mall?

Do you think shopping malls will survive the next decade?