Although she browses more often than she buys, freshman Katie Krauter said she likes to frequent Clay Terrace, Carmel’s outdoor shopping mall, about once every two weeks with friends or family. She said she also goes to the Fashion Mall at Keystone, but not as often, only once or twice a month, she said.But the Fashion Mall plans to complete a major renovation project by the Christmas shopping season of 2012, and that might mean a loss of business for Clay Terrace. However, according to economics teacher Justin Quick, that’s not necessarily the case.

Quick said, “The Fashion Mall has some higher end retail stores for the most part, so I think the clientele’s a little more different. (Clay Terrace and the Fashion Mall are) probably transferable as far as some customer base, but for the most part (the Fashion Mall) kind of markets towards a different sector as far as socioeconomic level as far as disposable income is concerned.”

According to Krauter, the new changes at the Fashion Mall will not affect her attendance there because store selections are more important to her than layout. She said she is, however, looking forward to the new Urban Outfitters scheduled to open in December 2011 at the Fashion Mall.

Debbie Lesjak, business foundations and marketing teacher, said since Clay Terrace and the Fashion Mall are both part of the Simon Malls corporation, they follow an anti-compete policy. Although there are exceptions like the store Ann Taylor, stores in Clay Terrace cannot be located in the Fashion Mall and vice versa.This reduces redundancy and ensures the widest selection of stores for Hamilton County residents.

Lesjak said stores at the Fashion Mall have been there for years, but students often look for new and unique stores. The Fashion Mall is already 407,000 square feet, but once it adds the extra 25,000 square feet of retail space, it has the potential to offer stores that sell coveted, new items.

Quick said, “From an econ perspective, everything’s about choice and how we deal with choices and how we make choices with scarcity. When you’re talking a decision about where to go shop, time is factored in, cost factor analysis and all this stuff. If you shop here, you’ve given up your opportunity to shop somewhere else type of thing. So it would just depend on proximity, so if anybody lives more south, I can imagine Castleton or the Fashion Mall. And if somebody lives more this way, Hamilton Town Center.”

According to Lesjak, the importance of a business’ proximity to customers depends on the demographic group. For teenagers, proximity is high priority because parents don’t want their children to drive a long distance in order to shop. For older consumers, distance does not matter if they’re shopping for a special occasion, but they won’t go far for everyday occasions.
Krauter said another reason why she frequents Clay Terrace more often than the Fashion Mall is because the Fashion Mall is too far away.

“I like how central (Clay Terrace) is, how you can just say you want to meet up there and everybody knows where it is,” Krauter said.

Customer service is also a benefit Clay Terrace has over the Fashion Mall, according to Lesjak. There’s not as high of a volume of customers at Clay Terrace, which means there’s more personalized service. Because of the sheer number of customers at the Fashion Mall, the workers may seem rushed or even rude because the workers don’t have the time to really help customers the way they want to be helped.

Quick said, “The investment wouldn’t be (at the Fashion Mall) to build these new establishments if they didn’t think it would be worth it in the long run as far as matching consumer demand.”

Although the amount spent on the Fashion Mall project has not been revealed, Simon Malls plans to go through its 16 nationwide development projects at a total cost of $1.5 billion.
Alexandra Gagnier, Director of Marketing and Business Development at Simon Property Group for Clay Terrace, declined to comment.