Originally Posted By Mary Poppins This was a beautiful store with outstanding soaps and scents from England. I loved their lavender products. But, they were so expensive. A bar of soap cost $7.00, but did it last!!! Our store left the mall. The U.S. would have different stores of course. I don't know if there's any Crabtree And Evelynn left in B.C.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Seems that some mall stores are having trouble. Wilson's Leather is closing all their mall stores. (I remember their local commercials in L.A. with the stiff and uncomfortable Wilson brothers) SunCoast Video has closed their stores in Fresno and Modesto. Ann Taylor and Eddie Bauer are cutting jobs too. I guess you could order stuff from Crabtree & Evelyn's online store. <a href="http://www.crabtree-evelyn.com/" target="_blank">http://www.crabtree-evelyn.com /</a>
Originally Posted By EdisYoda In the mall I work in, I know some stores are closing because the mall is jacking up their rentals. Meanwhile, we have one 3-story anchor store still closed from when Macy's closed Robinson's/May, and at least 15 other stores closed. That's good, why?
Originally Posted By mele There's a local mall in Redmond, WA where quite a few stores have moved/are moving because the rent was tripled this year. It's depressing to see the blacked out windows.
Originally Posted By DAR Suncoast is going to the way of the old record shops like Sam Goody. Their prices are just way too high, besides why not buy online or go to Best Buy.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy Mall stores are dying across the country. They just don't get the same traffic anymore as the big box suburban strip malls. Rents are relatively high for mall stores vs. strip mall storefronts since rents cover the costs of maintaing the indoor mall infrastructure, security in parking lots/buildings, and other overhead that doesn't exist in the suburban strip mall.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Seems like the whole indoor mall phase has shifted in favor of outdoor malls -- the types that are springing up everywhere. By law it seems they must have a Border's or Barnes & Noble, Old Navy, Kohl's, Party America and a Jamba Juice. I wonder if the trend will shift back to indoor malls again once the outdoor strip mall phase fades away?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan In fact, our local indoor mall has become a real mess. Many of the familiar chains have gone away, replaced with rinky-dink places filled with cheapie furniture and gaudy "decor." The signage on these places is even flat, cheap and tacky looking. Flat, cheap and tacky looking reminds me of my prom date years ago....
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << I wonder if the trend will shift back to indoor malls again once the outdoor strip mall phase fades away? >> I've noticed that the older indoor malls are being redevloped to include the big box stores in the periphery and parking lots. The biggest problem with the indoor malls tends to be security. They tend to attract more patrons that are there to just mull around and cause trouble than the strip malls. Strip malls don't really invite the crowd that is there to just "hang out," and as a result, criminal activity and other undesirable conduct is not as prevalent at the strip malls. This is a very attractive feature for retailers.
Originally Posted By jonvn That's a bad sign. When Tanforan mall really went south a few years ago, it was filled with these tacky little stores. Then it was redone, and was filled with nice shops. But I was there recently, and there are now a few empty stores, and a couple of these junk stores have shown up. I don't think Tanforan's makeover was entirely successful.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan That's too bad about Tanforan. I grew up near to that area, and going back a couple of years ago right before the remodeling happened it was a shock what a ghost town the mall had turned into.
Originally Posted By jonvn Used to be a concentration camp for Japanese. And it's where Seabiscuit ran when it was a race track. Lots of references to the races, none for the Japanese.
Originally Posted By Mary Poppins My local mall seems to be doing fairly well. Another soap place moved in where Crabtree and Evelynn was. We have so much rain that our malls are never empty. My mall has a fantastic food court but the prices are not cheap. Thanks for the website "Jim in Merced." I googled Crabtree & Evelynn but got only online business. Your website tells me there are still stores in the Vancouver region. Sometimes, things strike me as so expensive when you can get soap so much cheaper at Zellers or Walmart.
