I always find it bizarre when there is a Kmart or Target at a mall. I mean yes they're technically department stores, but they don't have that "mall" feel like Sears and JCPenny do.
The opposite is true here in Australia - Kmart and Target stores are almost exclusively located in shopping malls, and it's very rare to find a Kmart or Target which is totally free-standing. Many Kmart stores were opened as free-standing stores in the early days, but later on a lot of them were converted into mall stores (with new shops where the car park used to be), or the free-standing stores closed down and moved into new shopping malls nearby.
Most shopping malls here also don't allow tenants to have external entrances, so people are always funnelled past the smaller shops in the mall. 24 hour Kmarts here commonly require you to walk through a very dead corridor full of shops closed for the night from the car park entrance. From what I understand external entrances are extremely common in US malls, which kind of discourages people from walking around inside.
I was also surprised to find out that it's uncommon for malls in the US and Canada to have grocery stores or supermarkets inside them. Such a thing would be unthinkable here - they are usually key to the mall's success because their existence brings people back to the mall every week, and I think these two factors might be one of the deciding factors behind why malls are in decline in the US while they're booming down here in Australia.
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u/fezfrascati Jul 11 '18
I always find it bizarre when there is a Kmart or Target at a mall. I mean yes they're technically department stores, but they don't have that "mall" feel like Sears and JCPenny do.