That could soon change.
Stein envisions personalizing each mall to specific cities, such as Glendale, by including local shops and advertisers with which regional customers might be more familiar.
“Initially we have national stores, but we will replace some national stores with local stores, but most malls are filled with national stores anyway,” he said. “We believe local people from Glendale will shop there.”
And he believes local businesses will want to be included on the site, as it costs nothing for them to be included on the virtual shopping website.
“Because rent is so cheap — as in free — they can afford to be in our mall, whereas they could not afford to be in a real mall,” said Stein, 52, adding that he takes a percentage of the sale from each purchase made.
Local merchants believe the virtual mall could work in concert with physical store fronts.
“The more ideas we have, the better as consumers we are,” said Harry Hull, president of the Downtown Glendale Merchants Assn. “If your business model is such that you can sell your product online, that’s great. It will force local merchants to make that experience better for consumers. If you want to attract someone to your brick-and-mortar store, you need to make the experience at your brick-and-mortar store better for consumers. There’s room for both.”
Though there is a slight concern from Hall that less foot traffic to Glendale shops could result in less sales tax revenue for the city, the onslaught from Internet shopping sites can serve to make business better for physical shops, he said.
