Does “Retail-tainment” Draw More Shoppers?
A seven-acre amusement park fills the center of the giant Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Superstition Springs Mall in Apache Junction, Arizona has an arboretum, a playground and an amphitheater. The current trend in mall design includes any combination of these venues plus movie theaters, themed restaurants, museums, and other non-retail businesses. Why? To draw more shoppers, of course. But when people visit a mall’s tourist attractions, do they really come to shop in the surrounding stores as well? Or do they just leave after the entertainment ends? Many individual stores already have begun to feature entertainment right alongside their merchandise–teen shopping departments play wide-screen music videos; housewares sections advertise cooking tips on televisions placed next to the pots and pans. Taking the entertainment full-scale and moving it outside the stores and into the heart of the mall itself has been the next step, but does it work? “Retailing is very competi
