Many malls are facing long-standing challenges but how is that affecting shoppers' visits this year? Placer.ai took an in-depth look at the three main mall categories: Class A Indoor malls, Open-Air Lifestyle Centers and Outlet Malls, and what it found is that patterns differ according to a number of factors including by region. Mall location in a suburb or urban area and different times of the day and seasonality also come into play. And each type tends to serve a different consumer group. Here are more key findings:

Changes in visits. This past year may have put a kibosh on many shoppers' interest in venturing out to a mall for different reasons. Yet, all three mall types experienced some growth in January 2023, helped by comparisons to the prior year's wave of the latest virus. Foot traffic to Indoor Malls and Outlet Malls stayed on track with 2022 levels and visits to Open-Air Lifestyle Centers actually increased. But there were also see-saw or up-and-down results of note. Visits dipped in the middle of the year but then rose again in June as consumer confidence improved and then dropped again in July and August due to concerns over savings. But overall, Open-Air Lifestyle Centers have fared fairly consistently and were ahead of the other two mall formats, possibly because of their higher-income visitors, the report suggested.

Higher-income shoppers' dominance. Higher-income visitors are heading to all three types of malls with Open-Air Lifestyle Centers attracting the most affluent shoppers, but the other two types not being left in the dust. They both are still seeing shoppers with significant disposable income. The median household income (HHI) in the potential markets of the three formats was higher than the nationwide median for last year. The report also found that many of the top performing malls are located within relatively affluent communities and attract the higher-income shoppers from those areas. Of the three mall types, Outlet Malls had the lowest median HHI. The report also concluded that this type of mall may be more accessible to a wider visitor base and its audience may be more affected by inflation.