BLOOMINGTON, Minn. - Think of the Mall of America as the Colosseum of American consumerism: It has more than 500 shops, 50 eateries and its own theme park, complete with an indoor roller-coaster.
And now it, too, seems a symbol of a bygone era.
Some 40 million people still visit each year. But many are like Michelle Hoppe of New London, Minn. She drove two hours to spend $100 at three stores - Bath & Body Works, Victoria's Secret and a toy store.
Three years ago, she says, she would show up with a "pocketful of cash" and pop in and out of stores all over the mall. "We would just spend," says Hoppe, 45, who works as a home health aide.
The days when shopping was a leisure activity unto itself are over. Americans are being precise in how they shop, regardless of what they are buying.
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They're visiting fewer stores, checking off their lists and walking away. They're spending fewer minutes online as they shop. They aren't stockpiling food or clothes.
Shoppers today visit an average of three stores during a trip to the mall, says ShopperTrak, a Chicago research firm that tracks sales and customer counts at more than 70,000 stores. That compares with an average of five stores in 2006.
Inside stores, there's evidence that impulse buys are on the decline. Stores are messier because people dump so much merchandise before they check out, says Paco Underhill. His company, Envirosell, studies how consumers behave in stores.
It's "surgical shopping," says John Gerzema, a brand executive at advertising and marketing firm Young & Rubicam, and co-author of a new book about the changing ways we spend money.
One or two fewer trips per shopper per month may not seem critical, but multiply that by millions of consumers, and the impact can be devastating for the retail industry. In the first nine months of this year, the nation added about 23 million square feet of retail space, says CoStar Group, which tracks the data. Four years ago, that figure was nearly 149 million. About 700 shopping centers broke ground compared with more than 7,000 in 2006.
In some areas, newer malls are largely empty. And some malls haven't even been completed, like a five-story complex outside of New York that was to be the biggest in the country.
The commercial real estate industry is likely to keep struggling in part because of more targeted shopping by Americans. J.C. Penney Co. CEO Mike Ullman calls this behavior "appointment shopping." He's seeing more shoppers visiting stores only when they have a specific reason or occasion such as Christmas.
Mall of America reports that the average number of stores per visit at its mall is rebounding to pre-recession levels. But on a recent day, it was easy to find people making more tactical strikes.
Maria Lindblom was looking only for T-shirts at J. Crew, which e-mailed her a discount. Before the recession, she'd walk in and out of shops, scooping up $60 perfumes.
"I'm just being conservative," Lindblom says. "You could always lose your job."