Mall Lifts Ban on Promoting E-Commerce

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Mo. — After creating a stir by telling its retailers that promotion of e-commerce won’t be allowed this holiday season, the St. Louis Galleria has decided to lift the ban.

The upscale mall recently sent store owners a second letter, essentially saying to disregard the first.

“In our continued effort to make your Galleria store the most productive in your company, we went overboard,” said the letter, signed by Mark H. Zorensky, president of Hycel Properties Co., which owns the Galleria.

One toy store threatened to sue and many of the mall’s 170 retail tenants expressed their displeasure earlier this month after learning about the ban. It applied to store signs, decals, advertising or displays promoting the purchase of merchandise over the Internet.

While the recent boom in online sales has been viewed as a threat to brick-and-mortar stores across the country, industry experts said they knew of no other examples of malls taking this kind of action to combat the trend.

While it might matter to stores if sales are made at the mall or over the Internet, the trend toward online shopping does threaten revenues of companies that own the malls, as they typically get a percentage of in-mall sales from tenants.