Why Shopping Mall culture is losing its sheen in India

There was a time when people would go to the shopping malls to have fun with their families, respective partners, and friends. Some of them would get some new clothes and others would find snow theme parks, zip line rides and virtual gaming zone more interesting. You must have done bowling in the bowling alley and have played cricket on their indoor ground. Those were the good days, right?

However, the tables have turned and people now prefer other options which further has led the shopping mall culture to lose its sheen in India.

What is a dead mall?

A mall with a high vacancy rate and low consumer traffic level where the number of customers visiting keeps declining day by day, is known as a dead mall. Dead malls are open but are in a state of deterioration and devoid of customers. The pedestrian traffic that department stores previously generated starts decreasing in such malls and sales volumes also decline leading the stores to be unable to sustain the costly maintenance of the malls as there are no rental revenues for the stores. The Great Venice Mall, Ambience Mall, and many others are examples of dead malls.

While Indian malls have been witnessing dramatic economic downfall and financial hardships in the last few years, the pandemic which arrived in 2020 impacted the shopping mall culture adversely which resulted in an increase in the number of dead malls. But what are the reasons for the decline in shopping mall culture and their transformation into dead Malls? Let’s find out.

Digitalisation and E-commerce

Let’s consider a scenario. You desperately want a Puma shoe that you’ve been thinking of buying for a few days. Due to the lack of time to visit the shopping mall, you install an app in merely a few seconds, find out the product and order it for a lesser price. What better anyone can expect, right?

So, here is the reason. Digitalisation and growing E-commerce platforms are one of the reasons behind the decline in shopping mall culture. People prefer online shopping to traditional shopping as the former offers various discounts and thousands of options. To top it all off, it is quite convenient.

The applications like Myntra, Flipkart and Ajio along with many others offer you the catalogue on a single screen. Then why would people go to shopping malls?

Digitalisation, furthermore, is the result of reforms in education and globalisation which has played a fundamental role to lead India to witness a digital world. The education has led the people to understand more about technology and the usage of mobile phones. What added more to this evolution was the telecom revolution which introduced people to the ‘internet’.

As a result, here we are. Shopping from mobile phones, paying our bills through e-payment and living a convenient life.

High costs required to operate the malls

In today’s fast-paced world, managing and maintaining shopping malls is equal to the management of small cities. As we can see, Malls like The Great Venice Mall and many others offer you a different world where you’ll experience as if you’ve entered a completely different world. Massive Parking areas, security infrastructure, guards, controlling the indoor temperature of Malls, and running of electric equipment like lifts and escalators –are certain facilities that require a high cost of maintenance which further increases the overall cost of operating these shopping malls.

Moreover, the stores in shopping malls have to pay rent for their stores. This is why they fail to offer better deals to customers and cannot even compete with an e-commerce business.

Since there are multiple owners of a shopping mall and they have their own visions in consideration with the mall. Because of this entangled ownership structure, no changes can be implemented without the permission of all the owners.

Revolution in Indian consumers’ mindset

Another reason for the downfall can be attributed to the dramatic change in the Indian consumers’ mindset, choices, and habits. The fashion trend keeps on changing every minute. The market is supposed to offer what is demanded by the consumers. The stores in shopping malls update their collection every month and sometimes, it takes a whole season for them to change their catalogue. On the contrary, e-commerce websites keep updating their catalogue each day, each hour, and sometimes even every minute.

This is what attracts the shopping lovers and they often choose the shopping websites over the shopping malls as the former can offer more options in lesser time. It takes only a click to get anything they want.

What added salt to the fire is the arrival of the pandemic which led the malls to witness a loss of Rs 3000 crore between March 2019 to April 2020 leaving more than 1 lakh people unemployed.

People experienced online shopping more in comparison to previous years after Covid-19 hit the nation. The shopping malls began to be considered as an unsafe place while online shopping was a safer option for them.

The vicious cycle between old malls and new malls

It is the human tendency to explore new places, things and activities. This includes shopping malls too. The construction of new malls has also resulted in the increasing number of dead malls or zombie malls. The old malls are striving hard to exist yet they fail to compete with the newly constructed malls. People lose interest in the old malls and began visiting new malls which affect adversely the mobility of the people in the old malls.

The procedure continues. The new malls continue to develop and old ones continue to convert into dead malls.

It is true that shopping mall culture is declining dramatically. While it is possible to stop them for a temporary period but it cannot be avoided. The shopping malls, in order to attract more visitors, must bring some change and become more creative. They should also keep in mind the consumers’ mindset and their choices by updating their catalogue regularly. Else, they will continue to deteriorate and convert into dead malls.