Perspective on Mall Web Site Traffic
Retailers are usually surprised at the amount of traffic at mall web sites.
At Michigan Stadium, affectionately known as the "Big House", the seating capacity is now 107,501. In comparison, I've found that there are enough visitors to searchable mall web sites every month to fill the Big House 14 times over.
Of course, the presence of search is exactly the thing that helps drive traffic. Shoppers are fundamentally interested in mall web sites for their store directories: "where can I find the Gap store", of course, but also "Where can I find Ugg boots?" or "What stores carry handbags?"
In 1997, perhaps 7% of all visitors to mall web sites knew to use search. Today, it is the most popular activity. With wifi becoming a major prong in mall strategies, I think venue-specific search is going to become even more important.
The most popular request at hotels typically revolve around restaurants. If more hotels were to add local retail search, I'd bet they'd be surprised at how much new information they could get about their guests.
You've probably heard of MP3 files, and how the popularity of music downloads negatively impacted music retailers. I'd like to introduce you to podcasting, and what it may mean for store operations. 
