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Abstract
In the last two decades, retailing structures have undergone significant and sweeping changes. Technology developments and market conditions, combined with relatively affluent, highly mobile, and increasingly time-scare consumers, have all played
important roles in affecting retail changes (Anderson, 1993, P.23). However, the proliferation of regional shopping malls and other types of shopping centers is probably one of the most notable changes in the past two decades (Carlson, 1991) Consumption has also become a prerequisite for economic growth in today’s society, while the nature of consumption has changed, making the experiential aspects of
consumption increasingly important. Consumers are becoming hedonic seekers of pleasure (Belk and Bryce, 1993). Retailing is becoming a theatre (Kotler, 1994) and consumers are becoming the audience moving through spectacular stimulation experience.
The last decade has witnessed a considerable growth of interest in shopping as a research topic, not only within marketing but also in other disciplines. This has been the case in anthropology (Appadurai, 1986, P. 56) - especially in the context of material
cultures studies (Miller, 1995, P. 12) - in certain branches of psychology
(Csikszentmihaly and Rochberg- Halton, 1987; Dittmar, 1992) and in human
geography (Gross, 1993; Jackson and Thrift, 1995; Sack, 1992; Zukin, 1991). Shopping malls didn’t just happen. They are not the result of wise planners deciding that suburban people, having no social life and stimulation, needed a place to go (Bobeck, 1985). The mall was originally conceived as a community center where people would converge for shopping, cultural activity, and social interaction (Green and Smith, 1960). It is safe to say that the mall has achieved and surpassed those early
expectations. In today’s consumer culture the mall is the center of the universe.