Navigating the New Normal: A Deep Dive with Mall of America’s Jill Renslow on Pandemic-era Trends and the Future of Shopping Malls

COVID-19 has impacted different types of brick and mortar consumer spaces in different ways, but malls, which contain retail spaces, restaurant spaces, and entertainment spaces all in one spot have been affected in multiple different ways at once. How does a big mall handle all of the COVID-related changes and challenges? Today’s guest, Jill Renslow, is the EVP of Business Development at the famous Mall of America. In today’s episode, she discusses generational marketing, new mall trends that have emerged during the pandemic, and what malls might look like during the holiday shopping season. Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

✔ Jill’s role at Mall of America ✔ What Jill focuses her time on ✔ Experiences that Jill has been most excited about rolling out ✔ Technologies that Jill thinks have been helpful for retail stores and mall operators during COVID-19 ✔ How to improve generational marketing ✔ Early signs of customers being comfortable coming back in ✔ Whether trends like smaller footprint stores will be visible in the Mall of America ✔ Shopper trends that Jill thinks have been most important over the past few years ✔ Guidance that can help operators adopt the right technologies ✔ What Black Friday might look like this year ✔ Whether COVID-era changes will change or revert to the way they were before ✔ Mall of America’s green initiatives ✔ Places in Minnesota that Jill recommends visiting

Resources:

Jill Renslow

QUOTES:

“It is a very challenging time, but we also are embracing those changes and understanding that we have to accelerate what we had planned for the next 2-5 years, knowing that that needs to happen now.” “We’ve been able to really save on labor sources without impeding on the guest experience.” “As soon as we closed, the first thing we thought about was how are we going to reopen and what do we need to do to prepare for it? And safety is the number-one priority.”