In recent years, many small local shops have closed because customers travel to large shopping centers and malls to do their shopping. Is it a positive or negative development?

The customer is a king. The recent transition of small outlets from the streets to a store in a mall has impacted the lives of the smaller vendors. They belong to an unorganised sector of the economy and constitute a major part.

Firstly

, in older days, when everyone was familiar with the street shops they were well comfortable as well. The modern trade methodology shifted more to the shopping malls and online portals the impact on micro industries and vendors is huge. Since the capital available with these shopkeepers is low, they could not afford the advanced equipment that could help their business grow.

As a result

, when they could not cope with products and technologies they rapidly get vanished from the market.

However

, there are some examples of businessmen who translated their small business to macro level,

for instance

,

DMART

Correct your spelling

SMART

in India. On a whole, these examples are a few in number and could not be used as a justification.

Secondly

, the malls have huge spaces where you could get almost all items under one roof.

This

is another reason why local outlets get affected.

For example

, one has to go in different directions and travel some miles to do grocery shopping and some clothes to wear.

Consequently

, they have become an occasional place to visit, when a buyer is in urgent need of an item.

In addition

, they

also

get affected by the unavailability of parking spaces in the city. Due to these numerous circumstances, they often shut down in a short span of time since they open. To conclude, it is worth considering the adverse effects on

this

class of business. Ultimately, they are pushed below the poverty line and the liability on the government has surged.