Shopping Malls are modern versions of ancient markets where different independent traders offered their goods and services to the public. However, shopping malls are interesting innovations that keep all retail activities indoors as opposed to the conventional open air market.

Besides this, marketplace usually has parking lots, security, management, and maintenance services for the entire shopping unit all put under a single roof.

Some of the most common stores found in a shopping mall are those that retail shoes, clothes, cosmetics, electronics and house appliances. But it is not unusual to come across firms that offer services such as tanning, beauty, movies, fast food, gas refill, healthcare and video games.

The shopping mall concept has humble beginnings in the early 1920s around Kansans City, Missouri where one was setup by J.C Nichols Company. But it was not until the mid 1950’s that an enclosed mall was developed around Edina, Minnesota. This mall setup the stage for development of megamalls that have spread throughout the world. The first enclosed mall called Southdale mall had the most modern facilities that brought the notion of shopping to new heights. It had high end fashion stores, executive offices, theater, packing lot and restaurants. But it was only in the early 1980’s that a shopping mall with hotel, zoo, church, amusement park along with over 800 stores under one roof opened doors in Alberta, Canada.  The Edmonton mall in Canada also featured a manmade lake with a dimension length of 438 feet.

Besides all the features that have been integrated in a single shopping unit the experience could not be the same without a shopping cart. This is because when Sylvan Goldman rolled out shopping carts around 1936 it made the shopping experience refreshing and enjoyable. Shoppers who visited grocery stores in the mall could now take their time selecting their supplies as they slowly rolled their carts towards the checkout cashier counter. The baskets fitted on the shopping cart reduced the loads making it a compact storage unit like the telescoping one that developed by Orla Watson in 1947.

In order to minimize loss of carts by pilferage stop Z-cart was developed. This little electronic device is designed to lock wheels of shopping carts once they get beyond a predefined range. It also ensures that carts do not get out of the shopping mall. Another interesting shopping mall cart innovation is the cart bumper advertising system. The system shields shopping carts from collusions while at the same time providing space for advertisement. Meanwhile in other shopping malls have a different scheme whereby carts are locked and require shoppers to make payments to make use of the shopping cart. But the deposit gets refunded only once they return the cart to the docking bay. This way retail store can easily cut costs and focus on their strength of selling products because customer do all the work of managing the cart at their own expense.

Introduction of sliding doors in the 1960’s by Horton Automatics gave shopping malls an out of the world welcome and goodbyes to shoppers. This is because never before could shoppers just walk in and out of mall without the hustle of pushing the door. But while cash registers might have been around for decades, introduction of bar codes in 1952 gave retail stores a fast and easy way of labeling and tracking their products. The use of plastic money such as credit and debit cards also has greatly changed the way most people shop. This is because it enables shoppers to easily track their expenses plus it can give them loyalty discounts.