The Surprising Reason Malls Are Still Thriving
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Episode Description
Shopping malls are no longer just places to buy things.
Peter Fader, Wharton Professor of Marketing, explains how retailers are transforming shopping into an experience, from holiday activities to entertainment and social outings. He explores how this cultural shift is changing the way people spend time and money at the mall.
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Brief Summary
Retailers are turning malls into destinations for experiences, not just places to shop.
Key points
- Malls become places to do stuff. Retailers and brands are making shopping more experiential. People now go to malls for activities, not necessarily to buy anything.
- A cultural shift in holiday shopping. The focus is expanding beyond gifts we buy for others to include fun experiences we give ourselves while shopping.
Episode highlights
- Malls become places to do stuffRetailers and brands are making shopping more experiential. People now go to malls for activities, not necessarily to buy anything.“people just going there to do stuff and not necessarily to buy things at all”0:27Oct 28, 2026
- A cultural shift in holiday shoppingThe focus is expanding beyond gifts we buy for others to include fun experiences we give ourselves while shopping.0:33Oct 28, 2026
Transcript
And it's not just the shopping experience, it's the experience experience. Retailers and and brands have just gotten smarter about pulling people in, not just to to put money and credit cards across the counter, but to be part of the overall experience. You know, in the old days, it was sit on Santa's lap, which is great. It's fine. Nothing against that. But there's just so many more experiential activities taking place these days, whether they're directly related to the holiday season or just in general. If we look at malls, there's just such a bigger component of them where it's people just going there to do stuff and not necessarily to buy
things at all. So, that's a big cultural change that's taking place and that's going to fit less into the gifts we buy for people, but the gifts that we get for ourselves to go have fun while we're shopping.
