These locations serve as a place where people can just go hang out without necessarily buying anything. With all it’s abundant restaurants and sitting areas, malls have become one meetup location.
Shopping malls are places of shopping, recreation, meeting, and business for many people. Each day, many throng these venues for one activity or the other.
Below are 12 categories of people you’ll meet at the mall each day.
1. Shoppers
These group of people come to the mall for just one thing, shopping. Once they are done shopping, they get into their cars or pick a cab and they are gone. Whether it’s pizza they came to buy or a detergent, once they finish their purchase, they leave.
2. Business People
People take advantage of the environment and atmosphere to hold business meetings at the mall. Quite informal but effective. The restaurants are ideal places where one can get food and drink and still have some peace to hold a discussion. A lot of these meetings take place at the mall each day.
3. People On Dates
The mall offers the perfect environment to come on a date with somebody. It takes away the whole mystery around dates in this part of town. It’s open, there are a lot of people there and both parties can feel comfortable. You can grab something to eat and drink and still have the opportunity to chat. You can take a stroll around the place whiles talking. Or go on a movie date.
4. Birthday Celebrants
Instead of renting out a restaurant or any other location for your birthday, why not come to the mall with your friends, get yourself seats, buy some drinks and food and celebrate your birthday in style? That’s the whole idea, it’s cheaper since you won’t pay anything to the restaurant owners, aside the food and drinks you buy. They also wouldn’t mind you having your own drinks provided you’re buying some of theirs too.
5. People On Excursion
I know this will get you going like “SERIOUSLY?”, but it’s true. School children mostly come to the mall on an excursion. You’ll find them with their teachers, moving from one end of the mall to the other. They want to experience the escalator at West Hills or the elevator at Accra Mall. They are also taken through all the shops for sight seeing.
6. Criminals
Petty thieves, tricksters, con artists are also at the malls. With all the security around these places, these people come there with the sole aim of robbing people. They follow their prey until they can have them alone and then use their tricks on them. They also sit and watch people to see if there’s any personal belonging left unattended. They also go into the shops to try and steal stuff even though they are mostly caught.
7. Lovers
These are probably the highest of them all. Each day, people in relationships come to the mall for various reasons. Some come just to hang out and drink, get some ice cream, shop for groceries, watch a movie etc. It’s like an informal date for these people. There are times when guys bring their girls to the mall just to buy them that piece of jewelry they want so badly or to surprise them with some gadget.
8. The Movie Heads
They come to the mall for one thing and one thing only, movies. Since the cinemas at the mall normally show current movies, these people normally come there to watch. They buy their ticket, hang around for their time, get their popcorn and coke and just go in and have fun. They may or may not come alone.
9. Friends
These bunch also come around the mall every day. They may also be part of the walk around group or the selfie group. They come to the mall to just have fun and chat. They meet at a particular place around the food court, sit, eat, drink and chat for hours.
10. Family
Families also come to the mall to have some time away from home. You’ll normally find these group of people on weekends. Parents bring out their children to the mall to eat, drink and shop. There are also big spaces at the malls for kids to play around whiles mummy and daddy sit and eat and have some alone time.
Customized tshirts for families.
11. Selfie Lovers
As the name implies, they come around and as much as they buy something, they take a lot more selfies. Each spot they step at the mall, they need to have a memory of it by taking a selfie. It can get quite annoying but that’s them, they are the selfie gang. At a point, management of Accra Mall decided to ban the taking of selfies at the premises since they receive more visitors each day but shops record low sales. People seemed just interested in coming over to take pictures to flaunt on social media.
12. Walk Arounds
These people come to the mall with no plans of buying anything but to just walk around. They walk from end to end, shop to shop and finally settle at the entrance where they chat with their friends till they are ready to go home. For them, the fun is in coming to the mall, not to spend money.