Mobile Retail and Dying Malls

I’ve become fascinated with mobile retail. Not the act of shopping on my phone, which, while fun, is now fairly mainstream and just a part of my day-to-day habits. No, I’m talking about retail trucks. I was heading back to the office recently from a meeting just north of Union Square, when I happened upon one of these mobile boutiques. The truck was painted with vibrant colors and outside the “door” was a sandwich blackboard beckoning me to enter with a welcome message in chalk. As I ascended into the truck, I was greeted by a bohemian-looking young woman. I immediately got the sense that this truck was a little piece of Brooklyn that managed to escape across the river. She gave me a little primer on the assortment, and then encouraged me to wander about at my leisure. Three steps did the job. True to the laws of convergence, two other prospective customers entered the truck, and I was shocked that as we all milled about perusing the merchandise that we weren’t jammed on top of each other. Of course, if one more person had entered, that last sentence could’ve read differently.

After that experience, I’ve run across a few token others in various parts of town. I started wondering why I didn’t see more of them, in contrast to the now ubiquitous food trucks. I did a little digging and it seems that cities are not really prepared to deal with retail on wheels. While obtaining permits for food trucks seems to be a relatively easy endeavor, city agencies (and not just New York City, but nationwide) don’t seem to know how to classify mobile retail and therefore deny permits or place severe restrictions on use. I also read differing opinions from local retailers who inhabit the streets upon which these trucks park. Some proprietors get a little salty in their opinion of them, resenting the additional competition as well as the notion that the view of their storefront to street traffic is obscured by the truck parked out in front. Others think the trucks are a good thing, serving as an attractor and allowing them to benefit from the halo-effect of their adjacency.

Retail trucks are obviously a viable business model: a pop-up on wheels, it can serve equally well as mobile advertising (the truck as a billboard) to create brand awareness. It comes with the added benefit of directly exposing customers to their product offering and the satisfaction of immediate purchase, all of which is easily expanded beyond the confines of the truck’s capacity through an online presence. So this got me thinking: how to overcome the logistics of finding a place to park easily and legally with some consistency of presence to build a clientele? Well, let’s look at underperforming malls.

There are a whole lot of B- and C-malls all over the country that are dying to have new life breathed into them. What if mall ownership did some creative remodeling to dedicate a wing to mobile retail? Strategic re-planning would entail a shift of the existing tenancy into a condensed section, forcing some retailers into undergoing much-needed renovations, anyway, in order to create a quasi-indoor parking lot where the retail trucks could drive into the mall and park in an assigned spot for a set period of time. I’m convinced the financial metrics would be pretty good, given the number of trucks versus the number of full inline retail stores that could probably fit in the same square footage of a section of a mall.

What this gives malls is the ability to constantly refresh their tenancy, while offering the shopper a wholly new experience. People love going to flea markets and bazaars, or at least, I know I do. By providing this ad hoc environment, the mall owner will be creating the same effect, but in a much more controlled and organized manner.

Yes, yes, I know – this takes foresight, courage and cash. But I’m thinking I’m onto something here. By utilizing mobile retail, the mall no longer needs to undergo disruption during construction, or barricaded facades, or empty lease spaces. Mobile retail goes one better than temporary stores or pop-ups, because they come pre-packaged.  If only my last name was Taubman or Simon…

Kathleen Jordan, AIA, CID, LEED AP, is a principal in Gensler’s New York office, and a leader of its retail practice with over 24 years of experience across the United States and internationally. Jordan has led a broad range of retail design projects as both an outside consultant and as an in-house designer. She has led projects from merchandising and design development all the way through construction documentation and administration, and many of her projects have earned national and international design awards. Contact her at kathleen_jordan@gensler.com.