Mainebiz quotes McConnon in story about the Bangor Mall
UMaine professor of economics, Jim McConnon was interviewed for a Mainebiz feature on changing retail trends at the Bangor Mall. With the closure of Macy’s, one of the mall’s four anchor stores, as well as several other smaller retailers, James Gerety, general manager of the Bangor Mall said evolution is necessary and exciting. McConnon said that the challenges faced by the Bangor Mall reflect trends in shopping malls nationwide. “There’s opportunity for malls to reinvent themselves and look at the ways in which they can better meet the needs of the customers,” said McConnon. Some of the trends McConnon identified that impact malls include a general shift to online shopping, an overabundance of retail space and changes in shopper demographics. However these shifts don’t spell the end of the traditional shopping mall. McConnon predicts that these trends will lead to a variety of changes: “Folks who are innovative in responding to those changes, and to the demographic changes, will the ones who survive. We’ll still have malls. But like everything else in the economy, there have to be adjustments. There might be different things going on — different kinds of shops, different uses of technology and innovation — to be relevant to future consumers.”