You’re dead to me, but should you be? Using a retail database to classify American malls by occupancy and sales and an extended analysis of dead and dying malls

ABSTRACT

The study uses a shopping center database to classify malls by occupancy and sales. A factor analysis is conducted and reduces the large number of variables to a smaller number of mall constructs. The constructs are used to predict mall group membership by occupancy and sales. The results indicate that population and income are important variables towards mall occupancy and sales. An analysis of dead malls follows in order to produce more novel information for the growing interest in dead and dying malls. It is found through a second discriminant analysis that the prototypical characteristics of dead malls include; smaller in size, less population and lower income market areas. There were varying effects of renovation dates, competition and market age. Overall, the study benefited from examining dead malls more closely and provides more groundwork for future dead mall studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Malls
• retail
• geography
• marketing
• shopping centers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Kent State University Graduate Student Senate [n/a].