Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Browse Globally, Shop Locally

I often find myself bouncing from one Wikipedia page to another.  There ought to be a name for that - it's like what people first meant when they talked about web "surfing."  In one recent jaunt, I came across a weird fact: there is a shopping mall in Greenland.  Yes, the Nuuk Centre (in the capital, Nuuk) only has twenty stores, but it is an enclosed shopping area with stores of multiple brands.  Not any stores you'll have heard of, mind you.

I thought of that today as I walked around the Stanley Park Mall here in KW.  I love that place because it's so small for a mostly-occupied mall, and it happens to be about the size of the Nuuk Centre.  And like the Nuuk Centre, it's filled with local stores you've never heard of.  Of course, that's part of the charm: there's no place else you can find the Transylvania Bakery or Ted's Smokes.  And of course there's the tiny underground parking lot, complete with escalator ramps to let people get their grocery carts to and from Zehr's.  (I still can't believe that made financial sense.)  All the place needs is an adorable little food court consisting of a couple of tables in front of a vending machine.

I hope the mall can keep going tough.  Today I noticed that the jewellery-and-paintings-of-Jesus store had a sign outside that read, "Going Out For Business" [sic].  So does that mean they'll be shutting down, or they're making an extra push for customers?  The fact that it's shortly after the Walmart around the corner just opened, that could mean they are taking advantage of the extra traffic, of they're just giving up.  So they're either announcing their demise in broken English - which is just heartbreaking - or doing the sort of awkward pun that only ad writers could like.

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