Our malls aren't exactly floundering - there's just been two large tenants going under that are forcing malls to innovate. Sears and Target operated a huge percentage of mall space in the province - and they were set to fail long before amazon came around.
amazon is a new, big competitor in the retail world - but it's far from a retail extinction event.
Malls in secondary and tertiary markets are in serious trouble.
Major companies have pulled out of Canada in the past several years and others have significantly reduced their footprints.
Future Shop, Big Lots, Town Shoes, Bowring/Bombay, Gymboree are all examples of retail across various sectors that have pulled out or gone bankrupt.
The other major part that the casual bystander may not know is that retailers are pushing back hard on rents. In many cases, retailers are offering % of sales (6 or 8) to mitigate their costs. It's a bloodbath.
Bloor street has its share of world class retailers but they are mostly one-offs with 2 or 3 stores in the whole country. Yorkdale, Eaton Centre are outliers. The majority of shopping malls are at serious risk of becoming too expensive to operate due to Common Area Maintenance and capex costs that the landlords face.
10 years ago Reitmans - Canada's largest female fashion store by storecount - had over 1000 stores, while Dollarama had a few hundred. Now Reitmans has 620 stores and Dollarama over 1000. (By the way, Reitmans has no debt, so it has nothing to do with mismanagement).
The country is generally poor and middle class people have less disposable income.
Payday loan and EasyFinancial locations are littering every plaza.
Amazon has little to do with this and most companies lose money selling online due to the last mile cost.
