RETAIL APOCALYPSE Rethinking the Conventional Model by Einat LUBLINER Sushmita SHEKAR Hatem ALKHATHLAN Chris ZHENG 10
Figure 1: In the map above, the red dots represent the e-commerce infrastructure and the white x represents the closed malls.
The global transition from traditional shopping to e-commerce and the change in consumer trends, have led to the transformation of main street retail, Big Box stores and malls which were a de facto social space for American small towns into redundant infrastructure. In the last decade more than 150 malls and big box stores have closed and retail blight is increasing in most cities and suburbs in the US. This identifies with a decline in traditional shopping and the fast growth of the e-commerce industry The e-commerce industry is mostly based on a logistic system, hence through our research we found that it has a greater impact on the carbon footprint. This transition greatly influences consumer behavior. We looked at three types of consumers - the traditional shopper, the online shopper and the impatient shopper (prime user). The prime shoppers who account for 51% of the online shoppers contribute to nearly 3.3kg/e of CO2, owing to the vast amount of freight transportation involved in shipping the orders.
The repercussions of this shift has not only increased consumption, but also caused loss of jobs, strengthened monopolies and lack of physical social interaction. The Local economies and small businesses are usually the most vulnerable to this change since they cannot compete with the prices and delivery that the large e-commerce platforms offer. This draws a clear picture of the suburbs of New York- empty retail stores in the main streets, which the rise of the shopping malls created in the 50’s, and vast amounts of ‘dead’ shopping malls and big boxes that the shifting to e-commerce has left behind. As Urban designers we enquire into how the main street had a great impact on the social interaction and social life as in the past. With the shift to shopping malls , the paradigm changedwith greater focus on the product and atmosphere for shopping, and with the advent of e-commerce the social and spatial aspects don’t exist anymore. That led us to question how we can shape a new retail module through a social, economic and
