And they wonder why the malls are dying

Don't need to be in a mall for poor service.

I go to the mall as little as possible. I'm home most of the time so I don't have to be too fussy about my clothes, don't need office/work attire anymore. I live in comfy pants or jeans and assorted casual tops and have a few nice outfits (dress slacks and tops) for going out, and that's it...pretty simple. Most anything I need/want can be purchased online without the frustration of dealing with crowds or depleted stock. I avoid the malls because it's just not enjoyable to go anymore. There's also too much riffraff who just hang out there and are either looking for trouble with other people or are up to no good, in general. Nope, not going to put myself in that situation.

Malls are suffering because but for rare exceptions, good retail help is hard to find and because even when you can find help, they haven't been trained well enough to understand that the customer in front of them is, for that very moment, the most important person in the store. How often have you asked sales help if they had what you needed in a size or color that wasn't on the rack or counter and been met with the phrase "sorry, all our stock is out on the floor". Really? Nothing out back at all? How curious. Couldn't you just pretend to care and maybe take a walk back there and have a look see for me or, barring that, take a look at the stock that is out and see if maybe the customer just missed finding it on the rack? Or, how many times have you walked up to a cashier and put your things on the counter only to have to cool your heels while your cashier finishes her conversation with the cashier in the next aisle. Or the cashier who, while waiting on you, has to also answer the phone or confirm a price for a cashier working on someone else's order. I'm not a very demanding consumer but once it's my turn, it's MY turn. Every time I pick up my purchases to leave the store and say "thank you" to the cashier I want to kick myself in the behind. Why am I thanking her for just handing me my bag when she should be thanking me for shopping in her store which, in turn, provides her employment. When you add all these things together it's just easier and less frustrating to shop online where "out of stock" on an item means "out of stock". I'm no economist but I am a consumer and those are the reasons why I so infrequently shop in the malls anymore and I doubt I'm the only one who doesn't.

Maria

How often have you asked sales help if they had what you needed in a size or color that wasn't on the rack or counter and been met with the phrase "sorry, all our stock is out on the floor". Really? Nothing out back at all? How curious. Couldn't you just pretend to care and maybe take a walk back there and have a look see for me or, barring that, take a look at the stock that is out and see if maybe the customer just missed finding it on the rack?

I work retail. We are HIGHLY ENCOURAGED to keep all merchandise on the sales floor and leave NONE in the stockroom. The only stock in back is a bit of overstock, and even that we try to push out. Stores in general are not stocking nearly as much now as they did five years ago, as a way to keep costs down.

As for training a new associate-we are allowed zero training hours. The new hire is put on the sales floor the first day and learn as they go. I don't agree with this but retail dollars are held with a tight rein. We are forced to run the store with the most minimal of staffing, except during the holiday season.

These are pretty tough times for retail and the great service you once had may not always be what you get now.

The mall closest to where I live has been dying a slow death for years. It is nice enough, but the foot traffic is just not there, even at the holidays. It was recently sold to a company that buys dilapidated malls and turns them around. It will be interesting to see what they do with this one, as the big anchor stores pulled out. I never really enjoyed mall shopping. Now I buy a lot of stuff right from QVC. Say what you will -- the prices may be a bit higher than B & M -- but it is convenient for me and most of the time, the quality is good. QVC fits my needs, for now anyway.

For me, Bath and Body Works has the best salespeople of any mall franchise store. They are always extremely helpful and treat each customer as if he or she is very special. Ulta, on the other hand, has salespeople who either don't make contact or act like know-it-alls. Go work at Chanel - same attitudes. The Ulta salon has lovely people, but on the floor? Forget it. I haven't been to a Nordstrom store in years, but the .com site is fantastic, and is one of the best I've shopped at. But back to malls: poor service, limited selection and did we mention crime or undesirables lingering around?

CBS NEWSMarch 23, 2014, 10:11 AM

A dying breed: The American shopping mall

With the explosion of the Internet and changing shopping habits, hundreds of U.S. malls are expected to close their doors - like the Woodville Mall outside Toledo, Ohio. CBS NEWS

It used to be when a sign at the mall said EVERYTHING MUST GO, it meant a particular store was going out of business. These days it could very likely mean the entire mall is shutting down. Our Cover Story is reported by Mark Strassmann:

"This was a working fountain, wasn't it? Many, many years ago?" said Audrey Caligiuri.

"Yup," said Dayne Bihn, "it definitely was."

These are the ruins of a dying culture: the American shopping mall.

Caligiuri grew up outside of Toledo, and like many of her generation, she spent much of her teenage years hanging out at the Woodville Mall.

"The mall was always the place to go," she said. "It was always busy. I mean, you couldn't even get parking spots a lot here. I probably spent most of my paycheck in my high school years at JC Penney's and Petrie's."

Audrey wasn't alone -- everyone wanted to go to the mall. For half a century the mall was the Mecca of our booming consumer culture, a fact celebrated in many a teen movie.

America's love affair with shopping malls began in 1956, when the nation's first fully-enclosed mall, Southdale, opened its doors outside Minneapolis.

"This was the most exciting period in this economy," said Robin Lewis, author of "The New Rules of Retail." "Actually, the most explosive growth anywhere on Earth at any time during history, the early '50s through the '70s.

"In the mid-'50s Dwight Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act, and they constructed 54,000 miles of interstate highway. Now, what that did immediately is it provided mobility for the population which, prior to that, had been mainly rural. So they began to move into the suburbs and cities.

"But also, what it afforded was the ability to construct these regional malls, and they just exploded across the country."

Between 1956 and 2005, about 1,500 malls were built, including the Mall of America, one of the world's biggest -- 4.2 million square feet of stores, an amusement park, even a wedding chapel. And it attracts millions of visitors each year, from all over the world.

It was a Golden Age of shopping, which lasted until a new Golden Age came along, courtesy of the Internet.

"All of a sudden, the consumer now has every single retail store throughout the world a key tap away," said Lewis.

Today, malls across the U.S. are dying. No new enclosed mall has been built since 2006, and Lewis predicts fully half of all our malls will close in the next 10 years.

"Why would you get in your car and drive to a mall when you can just reach in your pocket?" asked Strassmann.

"That's the point," Lewis replied.

But on the outskirts of Atlanta, we found one formerly dying mall that's thriving. Where some saw financial ruin, Jose Legaspi saw opportunity.

In 2005 he took over a struggling, generic mall and transformed it into Plaza Fiesta, designed specifically to meet the needs of an exploding Hispanic population.

"We follow demographics," Legaspi told Strassmann. "Because it's nothing more than numbers game, I will tell you. You've got to have enough number of consumers to be able to support something like this, or any kind of mall."

Legaspi had turned dead space into successful Hispanic malls in several cities with large immigrant communities. Looking to expand, he discovered the Hispanic population of Atlanta had nearly tripled between 1990 and 2000.

But one thing was missing.

"The extended family concept is very, very key" to the culture of the Hispanic community, Legaspi said. "There was not a place where the families could gather. And shopping doesn't just mean shoes and clothing or eating at a restaurant; it's also a place where they can listen to music, sit down, relax, and spend some time with the family."

Plaza Fiesta has 280 stores, but there's also a doctor's office, and a dentist. There are hairdressers, money-wiring services -- everything you might find in a Mexican village. There's even a bus station to bring customers in; the mall had more than 4 million visitors last year.

Plaza Fiesta in Atlanta, Ga. CBS NEWS

And in another nod to the sense of community he's trying to foster, Legaspi has gone back to the future: "Every Sunday -- just remember 1950s America, people would come to the town square and they would listen to the band on the bandstand, right?" he told Strassmann. "Well, what we do every Sunday is we have music, and people can just come and sit down and relax and listen to the music."

"It's more than one-stop shopping, it's a one-stop experience?" Strassmann said.

"It's a one-stop experience, absolutely."

Robin Lewis says the lessons here can be learned by other malls, in other places: pay attention to a changing America, and give your customers something they can't get sitting at their computer.

So, if some dying malls are going to have a second life, Strassmann asked Lewis, what are the keys?

"Experience," he replied. "Entertainment. If we're going to drag them away from their smartphone and shopping on the Internet, you've got to give them a reason to spend the time to go and make the effort to go there. And the only way they're gonna do that is if there's a fun thing going on."

And an experience you can't get online.

I don't think any of us is blaming the clerks, its the management that doesn't train them. One exception, when a group of four of them is standing there yakking and brushes off your question.

I worked in a high-end dept. store for 5 years, so I know the drill. What I can't stand about shopping at a cosmetic counter is the CONSTANT attention from the clerk. I know they HAVE to ask if I need help, but I don't like when they don't leave me alone. I simply state to them, "if I have any questions, I'll ask", (politely). I can't relax & shop when someone is staring at me. I absolutely hate that, so I shop online most of the time.

I do realize that the clerk is following store orders, but GEEZ! And, the cosmetic depts. are HIGHLY competitive when they're on commission...can you say cat fight? I've been there, done that, never want to go back there....