Tag: malls

Oh Christmas Tree?

The mall above which my office building sits has put up its Christmas tree and other holiday decorations, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet! They completely skipped over the Thanksgiving holiday and went right for the big money. In fact, in order to compete with Walmart and other department stores, this mall (a high-end mall) is opening at 5 AM on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I didn’t think people were able to wake up that early after consuming all of that Tryptophan.

Itz a puzzle, alright

In the mall above which I work, there used to be a store that sold videos (DVDs, etc.) right between Haagen Daas and Johnny Rockets. A few weeks ago, that store closed up. In it’s place, opened a new store called Itz a Puzzle, which is a retail store that sells, you guessed it, puzzles. (And I don’t mean Sudoku.)

The stores occupied the same space, so that same square footage is being used. The puzzle store looks much emptier than the video store in both stock and patronage. And since this is a “high end” mall, I imagine the rents must be astronomical. So puzzle #1: how is it that a store like Itz A Puzzle expects to survive when a store that sells videos and DVDs could not?

This leads to puzzle #2: is there really more of a demand for old fashioned jigsaw puzzles than there is for DVDs? This would really surprise me, especially since I can’t recall the last time I saw someone doing a jigsaw puzzle, save perhaps for a 6 year-old in a doctors office waiting room. Why replace one store, with another store for which there is less demand?

I can’t figure it out. Itz a puzzle, alright.