Stop here and ask one question, “What would an entire mall running on Amazon’s tech stack look and feel like?”Īnd, then ask, “How much would you love it?”Īmazon Go (see video above), GH Lab, Amazon return processing at Kohl’s, robots running warehouses, etc. That’s what matters most and also where the money is.Īmazon’s tech is the mall infrastructure of the future What the shopping mall of the future looks like isn’t as important to Amazon as being the backbone of its expression. It will have that and whatever the hell else the wildest imaginations can dream up.īecause remember - Amazon is an infrastructuralist. Only Amazon’s theme park won’t have a mouse with big ears and a man-made Swiss Alp jutting up from the middle of it. Amazon, while it has the products and the content, is still missing one key ingredient - the theme park. Disney has content, products, and theme parks. They will just take on new forms.Īmazon has already become more like Disney with its “ flywheel approach” to commerce than anyone. Physical experiences, where retail is a key component, aren’t going anywhere. I almost never get the question: 'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?' And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two - because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time” People want to eat, drink, be merry, and sometimes shop at the same time, and, if there is one thing Amazon gets better than anyone, its universal truths.įor example, Jeff Bezos once remarked, “I very frequently get the question: ‘What's going to change in the next 10 years?' And that is a very interesting question it's a very common one. The human need for experience is a universal truth. Mark Ghermezian, Co-CEO of the new American Dream mega-mall in New Jersey summed it up best in a recent interview (below), when he said he was not looking at American Dream as a shopping mall but more as “an experience center.” Together, these two data points illustrate something profound - that the modern day mall is moving far beyond just being a physical outlet for shopping. In addition, a study by Deloitte found that mall shopping had declined by 7.6% in 2018 over the year prior, while non-mall shopping rose by 0.5%. Class A malls in prime locations were thriving, while Class B and C malls were struggling. No doubt the real estate Amazon has its eyes on is solid, for prior to COVID-19, some malls were still doing quite well. All of which is likely why the same WWD source also noted that J.C Penney has “some good real estate" and that Amazon has its eyes on “about 30 freestanding locations with a lot of land.” in prime real estate locations that are hard to duplicate, much like the Yankees or the Dodgers. They don’t come on the market all that often, and the good ones are all located where they are for a reason, i.e. ![]() Still, great shopping malls are a lot like sports franchises. COVID-19 has just sped up the pace of their collective reckoning, so to speak. were all under intense pressure well before COVID-19 reared its ugly microbial head. Department stores, specialty retailers, etc. ![]() The shopping mall business is in quite a state.
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