Its funny how “little” things like a shopping mall can be so different. In America, they are usually places you drive your vehicle to, spend the day (or something close to that nature, I’ve been lead to understand). Over here, theres one huge shopping mall (I think its like 1 kilometer long and 400m wide or something silly like that), it has a giant car park, its right next to the motorway, its in the middle of nothing, theres no housing close by, the only thing is a Lidl on the other side of the street and some car shops. But other than that, its “in the middle of nowhere”. Its about 10-15 minute drive from the nearest city. Its very easy to get to with a car. The mall has been struggling since day one. Sure, during Christmas shopping its full and whatnot, but outside any sales campaigns or events, its pretty quiet. I know, because I used to stop there for a coffee and bun, when I was driving trucks, and I liked places that were quiet. I even joked about it with the coffee shop owner, she said “well, for the sake of my wallet, I do hope you stop coming here” and I wished the same for her. Sadly I stopped going there for unrelated reasons and the café had to close because of lack of customers.
Anyway… The city that is close to the out-of-the-way shopping mall, has like 4 shopping malls in the center, all thriving. The newest one was built a few years ago and is a great success. All because the center of the city is extremely accessible with public transport and its walkable. You can walk from one mall to the other in like 4-10 minutes. You have all the shops you need within a 20 minute walking radius. And you dont need to drive your car anywhere, you can enjoy the benefits of the city, you can go have a picnic… Malls that you have to drive to are just silly in my opinion lol.
The funny thing is that a huge problem with online shopping people swore Amazon had gotten past, the inability to gauge the quality of the item before buying has come back in full force, people are just so used to garbage materials when buying in Amazon they don’t realize it now
This is the main reason I just cant deal with online shopping. I don’t care if the shop has a excellent return policy or whatever. If I have to walk to the post office to mail the package back, I might as well walk to the shop that sells the thing in the first place, choose one that is not damaged or defective and live happily ever after.
My city has a lot of malls, several which are quite large by European standards, and they’re all thriving except the one (there’s always one), and this isn’t even a big city by the same European standards. But it’s a walkable one with a lot of foot traffic, and two of them are just next to train stations.
Its funny how “little” things like a shopping mall can be so different. In America, they are usually places you drive your vehicle to, spend the day (or something close to that nature, I’ve been lead to understand). Over here, theres one huge shopping mall (I think its like 1 kilometer long and 400m wide or something silly like that), it has a giant car park, its right next to the motorway, its in the middle of nothing, theres no housing close by, the only thing is a Lidl on the other side of the street and some car shops. But other than that, its “in the middle of nowhere”. Its about 10-15 minute drive from the nearest city. Its very easy to get to with a car. The mall has been struggling since day one. Sure, during Christmas shopping its full and whatnot, but outside any sales campaigns or events, its pretty quiet. I know, because I used to stop there for a coffee and bun, when I was driving trucks, and I liked places that were quiet. I even joked about it with the coffee shop owner, she said “well, for the sake of my wallet, I do hope you stop coming here” and I wished the same for her. Sadly I stopped going there for unrelated reasons and the café had to close because of lack of customers.
Anyway… The city that is close to the out-of-the-way shopping mall, has like 4 shopping malls in the center, all thriving. The newest one was built a few years ago and is a great success. All because the center of the city is extremely accessible with public transport and its walkable. You can walk from one mall to the other in like 4-10 minutes. You have all the shops you need within a 20 minute walking radius. And you dont need to drive your car anywhere, you can enjoy the benefits of the city, you can go have a picnic… Malls that you have to drive to are just silly in my opinion lol.
This is the main reason I just cant deal with online shopping. I don’t care if the shop has a excellent return policy or whatever. If I have to walk to the post office to mail the package back, I might as well walk to the shop that sells the thing in the first place, choose one that is not damaged or defective and live happily ever after.
My city has a lot of malls, several which are quite large by European standards, and they’re all thriving except the one (there’s always one), and this isn’t even a big city by the same European standards. But it’s a walkable one with a lot of foot traffic, and two of them are just next to train stations.