It's not shopping, it's buying an 'experience'

New York

SHHH. Do you hear that? It's the sound of wind whistling through the abandoned malls of America as the Cassandras of contemporary retail cry their doom through corridors lined with fronds of lonely greenery: the end of a way of shopping, and all that.

But train your ears towards another direction. In Asia, an entirely different story is being sung: one full of glimmer and potential; one that is not limited to luxury products but treats all customers as if they were buying luxury; one in which consumers are drawn like magnets to the physical reality of a ... what to call it? Not a bazaar, really, or an arcade, or a plaza. An immersive aesthetic experience with shopping as a byproduct, perhaps.