Simon CEO Declares Brick-And-Mortar Comeback, Sees Benefit In Recession
November 2, 2022 | Dees Stribling | Bisnow National
Simon Property Group CEO David Simon used the occasion of the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday to tout not only the survival of malls, but their relative strength now compared to online sales.
“I need not remind you when physical retail was closed in Covid, all the naysayers saying that physical retail was gone forever,” Simon said. “However, brick-and-mortar is strong, brick-and-mortar retail is strong, and e-commerce is flatlining.
“The flight toward bricks-and-mortar is real,” Simon said. “It’s going to be sustained. And if they’re in the retail business and they want to grow, they’re going to open stores, and it’s that simple, because the returns on e-commerce just aren’t quite what everybody talks about.”
So far this year, during the first and second quarters, total U.S. e-commerce sales are $507.7B, or a little more than half of 2021’s total of $959.9B, according to the Census Bureau.
