I think of shopping malls as a particularly 60s-80s phenomenon that peaked in the 1980s, but are still an important force in retailing, even if they are not being built at the same rate and now more "power" centers are being built with big-box stores. Personally, I hate big box stores. I'm wondering when big box stores will start being supplanted by something else. They started to be a phenomenon in the 1980s and early 1990s and are probably peaking now, and will sort of decline through the 2010s. I think the cause will be Wal-Mart taking a big fall over the next 5-10 years in public image and wealth as it gets slammed with more restrictions. Generally, I think people will be less accommodating to big box stores and category killers as a whole...alot of trend predictors think smaller, independently-owned businesses are beginning to experience a revival now in certain parts of the country, partly due to high gasoline prices and interest in having active downtowns. I think a backlash against the big box might be part of a larger backlash in the 2010s against unethical corporate practices.

How many big boxes do people want anyway?  I usually just get mine at Staples.

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Personally, I hope there will be NO future for the Big Box Stores.  I hate the things.  They may have seemed like a good idea at first, but in the end, I really think America dropped the ball by supporting them.  Seems to me that mom & pop shops are a much better way to go.

Yeah...I think there's currently a big backlash against the big box retailers and category killers and more and more everyday people with options avoiding them like the plague, even if in alot of parts of the country they're the only option. I think this backlash and pro mom-and-pop ideas will continue to intensify through the 2010s. By then, there will be a new retail solution of some kind, maybe mixing chains and non-chains in street like semi-enclosed built neighborhoods accessible by both car and foot.

The oldest Shopping Mall here in my city was recently torn down in favour of Big Box stores.  On top of that, a big plant also closed down to make room for like 50 box stores, plus a jumbo movie theatre

Umm... what exactly is a "big box store"?  ???

A plant for what? I think the transition to big box stores from shopping malls is even more dramatic in Canada, or so I've heard. Here they won't tear an old mall down for big boxes and just keep the anchors unless it's failing, though they build more "power centers" than shopping malls. Big boxes are really a North American scourge, and they are just giving low-paying crap jobs over good, skilled manufacturing ones.

^
;D ;D ;D  I get mine at the loading dock of the local grocery store(Freeeeee).

Seriously, I hope the smaller individual stores are on the comeback. I hate Sprawl-Mart and their lack of variety. Meijer's, although another big box store, has Wal-Mart beat hands down. Meijer's is also a regional(MI, OH, IN, IL, KY) store, not a nationwide cancer, so maybe that helps too. I've also noticed their produce is always fresher. But I still prefer the small local stores.


I agree with you about booth Meijers and Wal-fart.  When I lived in Indiana, I NEVER shopped at either Wal-Fart or Super K-Fart because of the poor selection.  And their meat departments were simply gross.

Meijer has decent selection.  That said, they still have that "soul less" quality of a Mart. (Those Burst Buy big-box electronic stores are another soul-less place).  Go there on a saturday afternoon and it is pushing and shoving in the aisles.  (By the way I absolutely can not stand those people who alweays block the aisles).  A local grocer (Martin's) competed pretty well with Meijer but was so big as to almost be a big box.  But it had soul.

When possible I would travel north to Michigan to hit a smaller grocery store (small box, I guess you would say).  A much more pleasant experience, although admittedly less selection.

Umm... what exactly is a "big box store"?  ???


What it comes across to me is as those big retailers like Target who have surrounding stores which they are sort of like "sister" retailers. They are more like outdoor malls, but almost all have the same BIG stores involved. There's really no variety with them. So, for instance, if you went to our Slatten Ranch shopping center and went to Fairfield's shopping center in Fairfield, you'd get almost the exact same set up of stores. It's kinda strange!

Is anybody else here upset that Federated, parent company of Macy's and Bloomingdale's, is taking over like a bajillion regional department stores (Strawbridge's from Philly, Hecht's from Baltimore, Marshall Field's from Chicago, Filene's from Boston, etc.)? It's removing the identity of all these places and I find it really upsetting-I mean Marshall Field's in Chicago and Filene's in Boston are as much of icons as Macy's and Bloomingdale's in New York, it doesn't matter if they're going to be selling frango mints at the new "Macy's North" headquarters in Chicago, formerly the iconic Marshall Field's Chicago Loop flagship,  it's still corporate piracy. And it's an insult to the great city of Chicago...it's not going to be very well received and according to word of mouth, about half of the regular customers there will be so insulted they're going to refuse to shop there, permanently, and protest the name-changing this fall. I think this is the type of thing that's been happening since the '80s and is now getting to the extent of insensitive corporate lunacy where there's going to be a serious backlash against it starting to gain early steam now that will be huge in five years.

Big box stores are really not native to my part of the country, and we only got Target and Costco less than ten years ago, and Home Depot isn't even really king-we still have very successful "mom and pops" and ancient family-owned businesses in North Jersey, people here support them and there's a strong sense of community. Diners here are more common than anywhere else in the country, and big box stores are not really an issue, they're just part of the retail landscape. We had no real big box shopping centers until a few years ago, and now we have one in Clifton, which is sort of a combo power center and outdoor shopping center with big category killers like Barnes & Noble, Target, Staples, Sports Authority, Party City, Stop & Shop, and the Applebee's. I go there fairly frequently and big box centers really do have a vulgar, aesthetically crappy quality alot of the time, like they're just huge parking lots with giant tan boxes on them, that enclosed indoor malls don't always have if they're done tastefully and creatively. Shopping malls have been out of vogue to build since their height in the 1980s anyway, and probably big box centers are going to start going out of vogue in the 2010s to be replaced by more semi-enclosed street style shopping malls, which are in vogue on the west coast and very popular there. The thing is, before May's was taken over by Federated, the individual stores had their own names, even if the merchandise was all really just May's. So these cities had their dignity. People are going to get pissed off with this crap soon enough, I think.

Now there's really just Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom's, Saks, Parisian, Neiman-Marcus (out of reach for most people), Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Dillard's, Bon-Ton, Elder-Beerman, Von Maur, Kohl's, Carson Pirie Scott, Boscov's, JC Penney, and Sears as far as department stores go. It's so depressing, it really is.

Great! I applaud you.

Looks like us protesters are going to get our way here in Chicago.  Macy's has announced that they are seriously reconsidering changing the Marshall Field's name in Chicago as our store (I think) had the highest sales around Christmas.  I do more shopping at Carson's now anyway.  Since Macy's took over, the clearance prices at Field's have not been very low and I can't remember the last time I bought something that wasn't on clearance.  Right after Christmas, I bought a pair of CK jeans at Carson's on clearance for about $11.  The exact same jeans were on clearance at Field's for $23.  Before Macy's bought them, the scenario would have been the exact opposite. :-\\


I'm still steamed that Marshall Field's changed the name of the Mishawaka Husdon's store to Marshall Fields.  :-\\

Yeah, Hudson's from Detroit closed. It sucks when that happens to cities, ours had already been subsumed by Macy's by the time I was born (Bamberger's and Hahne's from Newark.)

I just saw today where Radio Shack is closing a bunch of stores.  :-\\ This really doesn't bother me as Radio Shack has long since stopped carrying electronics supplies and now caters only to people who want video game and radio control stuff. I haven't seen a Realistic brand anything in Radio Shack for years. I went to one a few of weeks ago to get some computer case screws and found they no longer carry them. I remember when they used to sell Tandy computers. Maybe if they would stock something that people go there for they wouldn't have a revenue problem.  ::)
Anybody remember G.C. Murphy, Danners, Ben Franklin, La Belle's, Ames, Hill's, Fedco, Montgomery Ward, Woolworth, Woolco, or Zayres?

I just saw today where Radio Shack is closing a bunch of stores.  :-\\ This really doesn't bother me as Radio Shack has long since stopped carrying electronics supplies and now caters only to people who want video game and radio control stuff. I haven't seen a Realistic brand anything in Radio Shack for years. I went to one a few of weeks ago to get some computer case screws and found they no longer carry them. I remember when they used to sell Tandy computers. Maybe if they would stock something that people go there for they wouldn't have a revenue problem.  ::)
Anybody remember G.C. Murphy, Danners, Ben Franklin, La Belle's, Ames, Hill's, Fedco, Montgomery Ward, Woolworth, Woolco, or Zayres?


Way back when there was a company called Allied Electronics.  You could buy just about any electrical part there, be it vacuum tube or transistor, nuts, bolts, resistors, capacitors, you name it.

Then they merged with Radio Schlock and it was the beginning of the end.  For a while they were called Allied Radio Schlock, but soon dropped the Allied name and the cool merchandise.  :-\\