Mall Brawls are Benefiting Amazon for Now. But Will the Brawls Get Uglier?
Mall brawls are a popular Internet sensation, being the subject of media ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies to South Park episodes. Black Friday brawls are especially popular on the Internet during the days after Thanksgiving. This year was no exception. In Alabama, security guards had to force shoppers out of the Riverchase Galleria, with the mall, the state’s largest, having to be shut down almost an hour earlier than scheduled after a brawl broke out before Black Friday. (Source: “Thanksgiving night fight shuts down Alabama’s largest mall 40 minutes early,” AL.com, November 24, 2017.)
On the same day, a teenager was shot and left with life-threatening injuries as a brawl broke out in the parking of the a mall in Columbia, Missouri. The mall had been open late for the sake of Black Friday shopping. (Source: “Bullets Fly On Black Friday: Black Friday 2017 shooting sees teen shot outside US shopping centre as mass brawls break out“, The Sun, November 24, 2017.)
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And just two years ago, some 2,000 people were caught up in a brawl at Mall St. Matthews in Kentucky which escalated to a riot. Some 50 police officers had to intervene to restore some kind of order. Officers were bewildered by the extent of the rowdiness in a normally quiet town with an enviably low crime rate. (Source: “Kentucky’s Mall St. Matthews Shuts Down After Brawls Involving Up to 2,000,” NBC News, December 27, 2015.)
Perhaps the “shopping mall brawl” phenomenon has also hurt malls. It seems to be a part of mall culture itself, because riots also occur in countries very far from the U.S., like England and South Africa. Bargain hunting has turned from a sport to an essential activity as economically strapped families still feel the social pressure to consume. The special sale offers an opportunity for many to acquire the things they want–or feel pressured to want–at a special price.
Those who have the luxury to buy when they like tend to have larger financial means. However, they are an ever-shrinking minority. It’s not just a problem of the shoppers, in fact; rising real estate costs are adding to the financial burden of retailers. They can’t afford to offer the discounts of yore and feel pressure to close up shop.
Online Retail is the Beneficiary
Online shoppers find lower costs. Retailers can build and run warehouses strategically to take advantage of costs, and with fewer staff and much lower overheads, they can offer the discounts people no longer just want, but need. Of course, the titular web site of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), which had its online store in place when the Internet just started to enter people’s homes in 1994, has a distinct advantage. Amazon has become the Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) of online shopping.
Soon, it could wipe out all retail with its unbelievable convenience, selection, technological innovation, artificial intelligence development, and global presence. Naturally, there is a cost to all this. Gone will be many retail jobs, and public spaces themselves could suffer as the relative costs of running a brick-and-mortar retail facility become too much to justify. The online shopping wave will als, inevitably terminate the phenomenon of the mall riot. That said, it could usher in the forgotten phenomenon of the “bread riot” as many jobs vanish.
The Mall Institution is Collapsing, Symbolizing America’s Economic Breakdown
The retail sector has come under pressure from online retailers, which can offer lower prices and higher convenience. But shopping mall dynamics themselves have contributed to the demise of this once literal temple to the gods of consumerism. The divinities, in turn, have decided to move to a new and more “virtual” neighborhood, none other than the Mount Olympus of online shopping: Amazon.
One of the main factors that helps explain the demise of the mall is socioeconomic. The mall has found competition in the form of its close relative: the big box store. These are the likes of a Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) or a Sam’s Club (owned by Walmart). They have literally everything, but at a discount, provided you have the SUV or minivan (or Peterbilt convoy) to reach them and take back the gargantuan loads. The new less aspirational middle class likes the discount stores.
The rich are the only ones left who can afford to even walk into the luxury chains that still have a place in the mall. That’s why so many malls are closing, while those that remain specialize. They are becoming ever more centers of “fashion,” targeting specific audiences rather than families.
Mall brawls aside, the shopping mall once represented the era when society focused on the larger middle class–the largest middle class in the world (which started to disintegrate in the mid-80’s). This was a period when even the so-called working class could aspire to bigger and better things. Today, there are more material benefits, but debt levels, housing, education, medical costs, and the sheer disparity of wealth makes everything feel less satisfactory from a purely psychological sense.
Thus the traditional shopping mall, once a very symbol of American prosperity and opportunity, has become a mirror to reflect and magnify the end of the inter-class and transversal model, which made America the envy of the world. The economic causes of the mall’s demise have accelerated a social breakdown. Indeed, the mall is where the social and economic inequalities of America come home to roost, as it were.
