If this deal - it's still in the exploratory stages- works out, it will be the first case in a long time of the business world acting like a classic country song. Wynn Stewart had a hit a few decades ago called "I Bought The Shoes That Just Walked Out On Me," and until I heard what Amazon is cooking up, that's the last time I heard of a deal like this. It's also a lot like Jackie Vernon's old comedy bit about driving along in his car, stopping to pick up a hitchhiker, and then being knocked out and thrown out of the car as the hitchhiker zooms off in it. The story concludes with Jackie forced to hitchhike to the next town, only to get a lift from the hitchhiker in his own car.
What I'm talking about is Simon Property Group, owners of most of the malls in America (but not The Mall of America!), angling with Amazon to turn old Sears and JC Penney stores into Amazon Distribution Centers, now that Amazon has chiseled away at the customer base of the perennial mall favorites and left them in sad sad shape.
This was in the Wall Street Journal but it was also in reputable news sources as well. The beauty part of it all is that it gives Amazon the chance to warehouse the hairdryers, screwdriver sets, fringes croptop tee shirts and Lysol Wipes that we buy from them now, and stash them closer to the customers to whom they will deliver all that "By tomorrow at 9 PM."
It gives the Simon Group the chance to sell or lease vast square footage of brick and mortar buildings for which they don't have a line of stores clamoring to move in. And it gives the few remaining stores in the mall - All Sales Vinyl, The Book Depository, Jittery Joe's Java Hut - the chance to do business with the people who drove those anchor stores away!
Who knows? Maybe someday they will work it out so you can just go the mall and pick up the stuff you want to buy! It could happen!
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