Instead of going to The Oaks Mall to buy a blue and orange sweatshirt, Rony Schutz stayed at home and ordered it from Amazon.
According to Green Street Advisors’ real estate analysts, the biggest threat to shopping malls is an increase in online shopping, which is likely to impact mall revenues.
It’s easier to shop online, said Schutz, a 19-year-old UF electrical engineering freshman.
“I can read reviews right there and then,” he said. “I can find the cheapest prices easier.”
While Schutz prefers to shop quickly online, 18-year-old Chase Chesonis, a sales associate at The Oaks Mall Hallmark, said that Hallmark’s customers are attached to the in-store experience.
“I think the customers we have like coming in here,” she said, “because the customers that we’ve had have been here since we opened.”
After almost 40 years of business, most of Hallmark’s customers are regulars.
But the store will be closing at the end of the month due to high rent costs, said store manager Melissa Herman.
The entire store is now 25 percent off, and all Christmas merchandise is 70 percent off.
While the Hallmark Gold Crown store will be closing, new stores will be arriving.
Oaks Mall spokeswoman Kristal Kelly could not comment on which retailer will be replacing the Hallmark store, but she did say an H&M will be arriving at the mall within the near future.
“We’re very excited about who’s coming,” Kelly said, although H&M was the only store she could confirm.
Kelly said shoppers will notice that a couple of stores have barricades up, which means they are being remodeled.
Those stores are still open but have been temporarily relocated within the mall until their original sites are complete.
PacSun and Gator Mania are among the temporarily displaced stores, and Kelly said Bath & Body Works is next up on the renovation list.
But even with the renovations and new stores, for student shoppers, Gainesville’s mall is far away from campus, said Alan Gary, a second-year UF sport management graduate student.
“They’re going to have to make a big push to try to pull people to that side of town if they want to keep going,” said Gary, 23.
Gary, who went to the mall Saturday to get sized for a suit, said he prefers to shop in store because it’s easier to see how clothes fit. However, he said he doesn’t like making the trip to The Oaks Mall, and he only goes there once or twice a semester.
Going online to shop is still a last resort for Gary because it’s difficult to find the right size, and he said he’s not a huge fan of technology.
Unless there are major holiday or close-out sales, Schutz won’t be found at the mall.
“I’m not going to go all the way to the store to buy something small,” Schutz said. “I just click. And done.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 2/2/2015 under the headline “Study: Shopping malls are threatened by online retailers"]
