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Malls: End of An Era?

Jamie Bergman
SL's Largest Distributor
Join date: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,752
10-23-2005 16:39
Though there is ancedotal evidence that the incident rate of malls is stable (or even slightly climbing) is the age of the SL mall over?

Just as IRL, where malls are losing popularity due to ubiquity, overcrowding, and inconvienence, SL malls face much the same [virtual] problems.

Which brings up my question: Is the Golden Era of the Mall over in SL?

Of course, longtimers will remember the first mall to open in SL; the wild success it brought - and the explosion in the mall industry it spawned. At one point, malls were seemingly everwhere... much as clubs had been before.

While malls are now less ubiquitous than in the past, has their time come and gone... or will the recent population explosion set them up for expansion once again?
Alain Talamasca
Levelheaded Nutcase
Join date: 21 Sep 2005
Posts: 393
10-23-2005 17:43
I am hoping that the recent expansion of newcomers, with all their hopes and dreams, will bring back the need for opportunity space...

Malls are still the best bet for small shopowners to be able to get some frontage and face time for their wares.

Malls magnetize crowds and create opportunities for many Basic account citizens who would not otherwise have a well trafficked building of their own to sell from. Even if a customer is premier and they include only a small vendor and landmark dispensor to their "Main" store (A less than sales efficient practice, but done, nonetheless), a mallfront store is likely to have more walk-by traffic than a standalone building on a FL lot in Northeast Chaska.

Also, if the mall owner is smart, all of his/her tenants can benefit from the owner advertising his location. Multiple traffic generators are beneficial to the entire mall community.
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Elle Pollack
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Join date: 12 Oct 2004
Posts: 796
10-23-2005 23:19
The trend I've been seeing, at least among the big mall owners that I happen to know, has been a move away from pre designed and built stalls/shops torward a demand for open plots to build their own stores on.

I don't know if other people are still doing well in the standard mall niche thouch, since I don't exactly have time to track the business.
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Natasha Sholokhov
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Join date: 20 Oct 2005
Posts: 13
10-23-2005 23:24
*edited*
Jamie Bergman
SL's Largest Distributor
Join date: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,752
10-24-2005 08:12
With all the 01 Fitz excitement, this thread got buried. I'd be interested in hearing comments from the population, should they wish to give their 2 cents.
Soleil Mirabeau
eh?
Join date: 6 Oct 2005
Posts: 995
10-24-2005 08:13
From: Jamie Bergman

Just as IRL, where malls are losing popularity due to ubiquity, overcrowding, and inconvienence, SL malls face much the same [virtual] problems.


They are? Oh goody, then tell whoever builds them to stop building them all over the place here. ;)
Jesrad Seraph
Nonsense
Join date: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 1,463
10-24-2005 08:18
Are malls really losing popularity ? Or are people looking for fresh new ones ? If the latter, there goes my business plan :D
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Anya Dmytryk
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Join date: 13 Jul 2005
Posts: 413
10-24-2005 08:23
i don't know enough about the history of malls in SL to comment on that, but though i'd share my perspective as a consumer. if i'm looking for something specific, i avoid malls at all costs. they are generally way too big, and it takes forever to find the item i'm looking for, if it's even there at all. malls seem to work better for browsing and impulse buys.
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Siggy Romulus
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10-24-2005 08:24
From: Jamie Bergman

Which brings up my question: Is the Golden Era of the Mall over in SL?


Hope springs eternal....
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Shadow Weaver
Ancient
Join date: 13 Jan 2003
Posts: 2,808
10-24-2005 08:34
Actually Jamie, I think malls are needed to a limit. Unfortunately there are those that come in with this WHOOT attitude that they set up a Mall draw Rent and viola they are millionaires.

Unfortunately this instability of the malls closing down after a short period after they figure out that running a Mall isnt as fantastic as it sounds.

What I see for mall owners is a Lack of Commitment. After a bad month/week or day or a tiff with a Mall owner Lover...they up and close down leaving Vendors Wondering.

Another thing prominent is Mall owners not fully understanding the working mechanics of the game. Asking Grid Monkeys for support when the "Canned" answer is No Light/No Scripts ect. to keep the Region stable. Problem is whether it wants to be admited or not is Avitars with 10,000 attachments is what creates lag not the scripts that most Vendors emplore today.

So the real questions that should be asked for shopping is.

1. Are Mall owners commited to providing an envrionment conducive to sales for Vendors.
Do they cator to Vendors by providing an area that will attract consumers while providing advertisment and events that will draw consumers in?

2. Are Mall owners commited to standards that they want to enforce and do they have the tools available to check and enforce standards that they put into place?

3. Are Vendors being accomodating by utilizing appropriate methods of setting up shop.
Such as being respectful and using Vending systems that are using no lag scripts and appropriate lighting options. Not using Listen scripts or Timer Scripts. These things should be asked as well when it comes to the actual vendors?

4. Are Mall owners Listening to those whom have been vending for years in here and have worked hard to help reduce lag and create a pleasant shopping environment for consumers?
This last question I can say is closer to a 70/30 split if you were to really inquire as the places that have been concious of this typically have a Higher Traffic Rate.

Its unfortunate that many focus on 1 or 2 points of this dicsussion and then typically abandon the rest. When they are confronted as to their errors or misunderstanding of how things operate they retort with anger and animosity.

So in closing Jamie while I agree with your questioning of the era of Malls I do believe that some other aspects need to be addressed as well as to why Malls are Failing or Succeeding.

I would love to hear other input on this as well and looking foward to some of the replies to follow.

(disclaimer note: if you are a mall owner and feel that I have singled you out in any way please undersand this is a general post and not directed at any one individual. The information parlayed in this posting has been a culmination of data collected over a 24 month period. If you feel you are singled out due to this then that is a summation you have made of your own accord and one I will not be held liable for.)
Sincerely Shadow Weaver
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Savonah Madonna
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Join date: 21 Sep 2005
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My thoughts...
10-24-2005 08:58
Speaking as an experienced shopper, I can tell you only my habits. Malls were the who-all of what-where when I first started. I loved them and visited LOTS. The amazement of seeing what was being done in SL was overwhelming. I got my first outfits out of malls.

In the few months I've been in SL my shopping has honed to where I feel I'm more discriminating of fashion in that I will only pick what I feel are quality products. This practice leads me away from malls and more to fashion designer's studios/shops.

There are many reasons I've made the change. Perhaps the most important is because shopping many malls is like performing an old time internet search where you have to sift through a plethora of unwanted stuff in hopes of finding what you are looking for. I do not always have an unlimited amount of time in SL and malls just take so long to browse through. Another reason is because I've settled into my tastes and just like someone would for Giorgio Armani or Guccio Gucci. So I visit the shops of people whose clothes I've come to enjoy wearing.

I feel malls do play an important roll in SL and for there to be none would be a bad thing because of reasons stated above me in previous posts.

Personally, I feel it's just a cycle. When an influx of new residents subsides they do pretty much as I have and settle on designers tried and trusted (this goes for all facets of commerce, not just fashion/clothing). When there is an influx of new residents then malls become a more popular place because they are repeating the cycle as we did before them.

Sav
Yumi Murakami
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Join date: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,860
10-24-2005 09:23
My observations from a kinda-new point of view.

- An awful lot of malls contain the same stores over and over. This means that after going around a few of them, the value of visiting others is greatly reduced because you've seen most of the vendors before.

- Most mall vendors are scaled down in comparison to a "main vendor", which means that once you've seen the stall in the mall once and gotten the main vendor's notecard, there's little point returning to the mall. This could, however, be changed in 1.7 (some of those attachment features are HUGE.. 16+ products displayed on a page, unlimited pages, tabbed categories, and needing only 1 prim in sim, anyone?)

- The two purposes of malls in RL are a) attract customers in for the "convenience" that they can do all their shopping in one place; and b) get walk-through trade from customers passing by a store on the way to one they already know about in the mall. b) is hurt by the previous point (because once they already know about a store they don't go to the mall any more), and a) has two problems - first, two many "malls" are all one product type so there's no reason to buy from more than one vendor; and second, certainly for me and other new members, Lindens come so slowly that we're unlikely to want or be able to make much more than one purchase at a time anyway.
Goyan Luchador
Carbon Based Humanoid
Join date: 23 May 2004
Posts: 218
10-24-2005 09:44
For me, the mall experience died a long time ago. I prefer using the online sl exchange venue. Malls seem to be sort of unpleasant, in the sense of lag, money-ball-ingo parlours, non-user friendly floor plans, poor signage, and roaming griefer types. Just not for me.
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blaze Spinnaker
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Join date: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 5,898
10-24-2005 09:48
In world stores are the future.

If I'm going to buy something, I want a demo. I want to see it up close and in action.

I don't want to rely on fake reviews written up by people selling the item or, just as bad, competitors who are panning it.
Goyan Luchador
Carbon Based Humanoid
Join date: 23 May 2004
Posts: 218
10-24-2005 09:54
From: blaze Spinnaker
In world stores are the future.

If I'm going to buy something, I want a demo. I want to see it up close and in action.

I don't want to rely on fake reviews written up by people selling the item or, just as bad, competitors who are panning it.


Yes which begs for a system of Try Before You Buy. This would make all venues a more rewarding shopping experience if you could use the object for like two minutes before it goes back to the vendor.
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blaze Spinnaker
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Join date: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 5,898
10-24-2005 09:59
Yes, precisely. Hopefully Lindens are reading this thread.