In the US, anyway. Specifically, I’m in Michigan.
My wife and I like to walk in malls during the super hot summer and we have noticed something, having been in a few malls. There are a tons of jewelry stores. Our relatively small mall near us has 4 or 5. We went to a bigger one today and it had 5 or more.
Clothing stores I get, but jewelry? Why are so many jewelry stores situated in malls? How did this begin? Is this something that occurs everywhere, or just in Michigan?
Thanks!
I have no idea why, but the only mall in my town of approximately 26,000 people, there are four diamond dealers. I assume you mean higher end jewelry, rather than Claire’s?
With high gross profit, low square ft requirements, high turn per sq ft and foot traffic a big requirement they are almost perfect fits for malls. They are in the malls because they don’t need much space and visibility is huge for jewelers.
I’m not sure how security factors in but I would imagine a well run mall environment is a more secure against armed theft than a stand alone store.
nm
Yep. Mall stores need high profit margins. Jewelry is one such business.
If a mall could have a car dealer or mattress seller, it would. Some types of stores need only a sale or two a month to make rent, and jewelry stores are in that category.
And they do. Mattress stores at least. I know of one, and maybe a second in one local mall.
People sometimes go to malls by themselves, but often not. Couples go there and that’s what the jewelry stores thrive on, pressure from the person standing next to you. You can also get the illusion of choice by going to a mall for jewelry, but you’ll be ripped off regardless where you buy it in the mall.
Window shoppers, and people who just buy what’s in front of them also shop at malls. You will almost never hear about a penny pincher shopping at a mall. Jewelry is nowhere near a necessity, so they cater to those that spend semi-recklessly. Malls fit the bill perfectly.
My local mall in Canberra has a bunch of them also. They tend to congregate on the corners or crossroads.
The mall jewelry stores I’ve been to typically carry a range of variously priced merchandise. They don’t pretend to be Tiffany’s.
Sears still has a mattress department - small and not very good. Mattress stores need a good big of space - as do car dealers, of course. A mall wouldn’t turn down a mattress seller (and I’ve seen the very high end mattress sellers in malls) but they are not a good fit.
I also have two mattress stores in a mall near me.
There should be a ban on mattress store TV ads with their blowzy spokeswomen (who often look like mattresses themselves) and annoying yammering. Just sayin’. There has to be a huge profit margin on this stuff for so many to be in business.
Around here mattress stores go in an out of business a lot. I think there’s a decent profit margin per mattress for many of them, but sales can’t be all that brisk. After all, how many mattresses does a person buy in a lifetime? In this rotten economy people probably hand onto their old big dent in the middle, springs poking out, mattresses for a long time. The bedbug epidemic might be the only upsurge they’ve seen for a long time.
+1
What he said. 
Do you really understand the need for so many clothing stores? Maybe you could explain it to me.
Here’s a count of the major categories in a mall near me. I got these numbers from their own mall directory:[ul]
[li]Apparel, Women’s - 66[/li][li]Apparel, Men’s - 48[/li][li]Apparel, Children’s - 35[/li][li]Books/Cards/Gifts/Toys - 8[/li][li]Shoes - 45[/li][li]Electronics & Home Entertainment - 13[/li][li]Jewelry & Accessories - 29[/li][li]Luggage - 15[/li][/ul]Just to clarify: Many clothing stores are in more than one category. “Electronics & Home Entertainment” is mostly phone stores, and also video games and movies. “Jewelry & Accessories” includes eyeglasses.
So – Do people really buy 3 to 4 times as much shoes and clothing as their electronics and entertainment? How can 15 luggage stores stay in business?
Why is there not even one hardware store? “Books” is a joke – the closest thing to a bookstore among those eight is the newsstand. There are three legitimate toy stores (Toys R Us, The Lego Store, and The Disney Store), but I’m very surprised that there aren’t more; there are lots of families at this mall. Really… More than 20 women’s clothing stores for each toy store? Do toy stores have that small of a profit margin? Is their profit margin smaller than the newsstand’s?
Am I weird, or is it highly probable that (like me) most other men get bored when they go here?
Almost to death. Unless it’s anchored with a Sears (tools) or a large cookware store like Sur la Table or Kitchen Kaboodle, I avoid malls at all cost.
Oh but malls do have car dealerships. Where I live, we have the Mall of Georgia: the traditional anchor stores linked by multilevel corridors lined with boutiques (and a statue of Button Gwinnett on the roof!) Beyond that core, like the Rings of Saturn, are layers of strip malls with Target and big box electronic stores; with stand-alone Red Lobsters and Olive Gardens and Longhorn Steakhouses hunkered at the edge of the parking steppes. Then, beyond this layer are the car dealerships: Mall of Georgia Chevrolet, Mall of Georgia Toyota, etc.
And then, beyond that, a stand-alone jewelry store that, along with several other non-mall jewelry stores in the area last year, had a smash & grab invasion with pistol-whippings.
No, but clothing/shoes/jewelry have something in common that electronics/books/etc. do not: there’s no substitute for trying them on in person. So the electronics and stuff moves to online sales, leaving mostly clothing in the malls.
Nah this has always been the ratio going back well before the internet.
The new advertising push is that mattresses wear out, and you need a new one every 7-8 years. Which might be true - our back pain vanished after we bought a new one.
I don’t know where you live, but my daughter rode with the wife of the guy who owns the mattress chain around here, and neither she nor he is blowzy. He does his own ads, and he doesn’t yammer either. YMMV (Your mattress may vary.)