Marketplace icons: shopping malls

Abstract

This article considers shopping malls as marketplace icons. We suggest that shopping malls can be regarded as a significant symbol of consumption in an age of late modernity, and highlight key aspects of their development. The role of the shopping mall as an agent of creative destruction, influencing the nature of the retail landscape (especially with regard to the implications of -stereotypically suburban --malls for traditional urban retail provision), is discussed. We also consider the implications for notions of 'place' (in terms of authenticity and meaning etc.) arising from the fundamental characteristics of shopping malls, and end by suggesting that the shopping mall, as a marketplace icon, continues to dynamically and iteratively define and refine the ongoing interactions between consumers, the act of consumption, and place and space

Is the Macy's in my mall going to close? Uncovering the factors associated with the closures of Macy's, Sears, and J.C. Penney stores

“…Store age as a concept can be related to the retail life cycle literature (Dodge & Robbins, 1992). Department stores like J.C. Penney, Macy's, and Sears enjoyed a dominant position as a prime shopping destination through the 1950s (Davidson, Bates, & Bass, 2002) and perhaps the growth of suburban shopping centers in the 1970s (Warnaby & Medway, 2016) enabled department stores to have an extended period of stability through their ability to anchor shopping centers. Start Up, 2.…”

“…Decline. Department stores like J.C. Penney, Macy's, and Sears enjoyed a dominant position as a prime shopping destination through the 1950s (Davidson, Bates, & Bass, 2002) and perhaps the growth of suburban shopping centers in the 1970s (Warnaby & Medway, 2016) enabled department stores to have an extended period of stability through their ability to anchor shopping centers. In fact, some scholars have provided empirical evidence that rents for department stores are heavily discounted (Pashigian & Gould, 1998;Konishi & Sandfort, 2003), which further supports department stores benefitting from being in malls.…”

Christmas markets – marketplace icon

“…The maintenance of Christmas markets partly rests in their ability to continue to speak to the consumption zeitgeist of the time (Varman 2017). British consumers experience German Christmas markets in the UK as an antidote to that dystopian values associated with consumption spaces of late capitalism, such as greed, the breakdown of community and cooperative social relations, and a rise in individualist, opportunistic behaviours (Warnaby and Medway 2018). The modern-day incarnation of Christmas markets in the UK thus speaks to the contemporary tastes of British consumers who (maybe tokenistically) appeal to a desired transformation of capitalism and a return to more socially responsible economic and social relations (Amin 2009).…”

Copyright: a systemic marketplace icon

“…Equally, democratic principles and the notion of the public interest, which underpin arguments for public access, are fundamentally at odds with prioritising private interests (Sykes 2003). As noted in the introduction, these kinds of conflicts are not unusual in marketplace icons; Warnaby and Medway (2016), for example, note that shopping malls may be an obvious iconic site of consumption, but area also anti-marketplace icons, insofar as they weaken other marketplaces, such as local high streets and retail centres.…”