A story in the Wall Street Journal has taken note of the not-so-new trend in mall shopping away from full up department stores. Some may ask so what. It’s now 17 year since Eaton’s went bankrupt and there are kids who ask “Mom, what’s an Eaton’s?” But the finer points of this trend include the capacity of malls to do better with something like the Cheescake Factory where there used to be a Sears or J.C. Penney. Today, according the WSJ, customers are less interested in hulking department stores than speciality shops and places with racks and racks of fashions. At mall operator Simon, for example, new tenants are Forever 21 (fashion) Target and European fast-fashion shop Primark, which entered the U.S. market by slipping in into former Sears stores. Then there’s Canadian owned (The Bay) Nordstrom which is said to be soldiering on against slumping times in the U.S. Let’s hope this mark and its parent are able to attract customers here.
