BUFORD, Ga. - As Americans do more shopping from the convenienceof their computers, mall owners are working to make their brick-and-mortar investments doorways to a retail world where Web sites,catalogs and stores converge.
The expansion of Internet retailing this holiday season spookedsome mall operators who are worried about potential losses as moreconsumers shop online instead of strolling through malls.
The issue was brought to the forefront in November when one mallowner, Hycel Properties of St. Louis, banned Internet advertisingfrom the Saint Louis Galleria. Hycel did a quick turnabout after atenant threatened to sue.
Analysts say Hycel merely expressed publicly what many retailersfear privately - a shift in traffic from malls to the Internet coulddecimate profits.
Others contend that owners and developers have already begunadapting by transforming malls into diverse centers that sellthemselves not just as retail centers but recreation destinations.
One of the Southeast's biggest malls, the 1.7 million-square-foot Mall of Georgia near Atlanta, offers a sporting goods storewith a rock-climbing wall, IMAX movie theater and ice rink.
The mall's owner, Simon Property Group of Indianapolis, has beenamong the most aggressive at incorporating Internet commerce intoits long-term strategy.
Simon, the nation's biggest mall operator, has formed asubsidiary, clixnmortar.com, to develop new Internet ventures forretailers and plans to begin wiring its 176 malls next year for high-speed Internet access, allowing stores to add multimedia kiosks, Webvideocasts and other marketing tools.
Clixnmortar.com, which is based in Chicago, is founded on thepremise that soon "people will be online all the time," presidentMelanie Alshab said.
"We believe it'll be a very effective way for people to shop,"she said of the merger of cyber and retail spaces.
Clixnmortar.com began testing its first online product,FastFrog.com, in November at two suburban Atlanta properties, Mallof Georgia in Buford and Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth.
FastFrog.com offers teen-agers a way to make electronic giftregistries by scanning products at eight mall stores with a handheld"zapstick" after they register at a kiosk dubbed the "frog pond."The service then loads the list onto the user's personal Web page,which clixnmortar.com hosts for free. The users also can linkproducts from 24 other retailers' Web sites into FastFrog.com.
The company, which promotes FastFrog as a way for kids to "wishlouder," had 7,760 youngsters registered by Christmas.
Many are like 13-year-old Christine Morahan, who was so giddyabout zapping clothes at the Mall of Georgia's Abercrombie & Fitchoutlet that she began jumping up and down.
"She's going to zap everything because she wants everything,"said Christine's mother, Audrey Morahan.
"Is there a toy store I can zap in?" Christine's 8-year-oldsister Erica asked manager Marlo Oliver. The answer, sadly, was notyet.
Clixnmortar's other venture, YourSherpa.com, began in mid-December at Lenox Square mall in Atlanta and is targeted at adults,Alshab said.
The concept is to eliminate the need for purchasers to wait in acheck-out line and schlep shopping bags through the mall.
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