Malls look for new anchors in storm

Many malls of China

A giant Egyptian sphinx and a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, along with Venetian gondolas and an indoor rollercoaster weren't enough to attract customers to China's largest mall－the New South China Mall－in Dongguan, a city with millions of migrant workers. But the "dead mall", at 7 million square feet twice as large as Mall of America, was revived when it focused on dining and entertainment.

China's mall-building also has been attributed to local governments looking to increase their tax bases.

Cities such as Qingdao, Chongqing and Dalian all saw large shopping malls shut down in August 2016, ECNS reported.

The North Star Shopping Center in the Asian Games Village in Beijing announced its closure on Jan 8.

Opened in 1990, the North Star was once the commercial pride of the capital. It was the first mainland mall to have indoor elevators, and the first to offer nonstop shopping during the Lunar New Year.

"When I first moved here, there were many shoppers, and things were cheap. But later it started to sell pricey stuff, and there were fewer and fewer people," said Wang Tao, 55, who lives nearby.

And since May 2017, stores have been pulling out of Sogo, one of the largest malls in central Beijing.

In China, if anyone has a say about the future of bricks-and-mortar retail, it will be the e-commerce behemoths.

"Major e-commerce giants like Alibaba and Tencent are moving to the offline space to grab a bigger slice of the retail sales pie (as online represents less than 15 percent of total China retail sales)," Jason Yu, manager of market research firm Kantar Worldpanel, in Shanghai, told China Daily.