Shopping malls have already become a dying industry with the advent of online shopping and convenient sites with lightning speed shipping like Amazon and Ebay. The end of November is a time for crowds at grocery stores shopping for a last minute turkey and herds of customers fighting for that last TV during Black Friday. For children too, now is typically a time for meeting the mythical bearded silver-haired man who makes all wishes come true. All of these, especially the shopping mall experience, will have to change in the wake of the pandemic. What will that look like?

While just Black Friday would previously provide retailers the sales of an entire week, earnings will be significantly reduced as the number of people in a store at once will be limited. More than just the singular day, November and December typically provides the retail industry a full quarter of the year’s sales, just another part of the economy that this pandemic will continue to hurt.

 Some stores are changing the shopping experience for customers beyond masks and social distancing: athletic clothing giant Lululemon Athletica will sell from smaller stalls dispersed throughout the mall in some regions. On the other hand, online retailers are understandably expected to more higher sales this year.

As the effects of this pandemic will likely not end anytime soon, we may see the already dying in-person retail industry transform into a fully online experience. Gone will be the days of waiting in endless lines and in will come the future of universal one-click purchasing and near-instant delivery.

But this altered shopping experience doesn’t just affect adults: it impacts young children too. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, the excitement over your local mall Santa is a key winter experience. Children get to meet a magical figure they’ve only heard about and parents get to fawn over their cute but sometimes confused children. This year though, meeting Santa may have to be conducted between plexiglass barriers or over Zoom. When in person, this event is also a huge attractor for malls as it is one of the few events people cannot get from an online store. This will greatly impact shopping malls and the men who use this job as an extra source of income alike.

Maybe children’s meeting with Santa will be just as memorable for them, and maybe the retail industry creates a better business model to adapt to this change and prevail. All we know for now is that like many other things in this time, things will just look different.