Twin Cities malls say crowds returned over the holiday season

If you thought shopping malls were more crowded during the holidays than they have been in a while. you weren't just imagining it.

While many retail sales reports will not be out until later this month or next, leaders of several Twin Cities malls say crowds were back in full force over the past few months — and in many cases were on par with or surpassed 2019 numbers.

"Our numbers were fantastic," said Lisa Crain, general manager of Rosedale Center. "You're just seeing more people coming back to the mall."

She added that families did not just shop for deals — of which there were plenty — but they also came to eat at the food hall or to visit the mall's Santa experience. It was a burst of activity the mall hadn't seen for a few years, due largely to COVID-19.

The Mall of America ushered more than a half-million visitors through its doors over Black Friday weekend, a bit more than it had in 2019 — a trend that continued throughout the rest of the year.

For the entire holiday shopping season, the megamall's traffic was up 18.5% over 2022 and 2.4% over 2019, said Jill Renslow, a senior executive at the mall. Many tenants told mall officials that their sales were strong.

"And our theme park was hopping," she said. Attendance at Nickelodeon Universe was up 25% in December over the year before and up 3% from 2019.

"The weather definitely helped us out, too, because with no snow for families to play in outside, families were looking for things to entertain their families, and we were thrilled to have them come here," Renslow said.

There were an additional five days in the holiday shopping season this year compared with 2019, which helped, she said. Christmas Day falling on a Monday also gave procrastinators a final Saturday and Sunday to make last-minute purchases.

In addition, she pointed out that mall operating hours were back to normal last year, and retailers, which dealt with shipping and inventory woes a couple years ago, had plenty of products on shelves this time around. And they often started their sales early to attract shoppers who may have been on tighter budgets.

Other malls in the region reported similar trends.

Southdale Center had a strong holiday shopping season, surpassing recent pre- and post-pandemic sales numbers, said spokesperson Bonni Pear.

And at Eden Prairie Center, executives were "pleased with the strength of holiday traffic and sales," general manager Nancy Litwin wrote in an email.

Still, holiday sales in 2023 are not expected to have grown as much as they did in 2022 amid higher interest rates, dwindling savings and higher prices.

The National Retail Federation predicted U.S. holiday sales would increase 3% to 4% in 2023, which would be fairly typical growth but slower than 2022's 5.4% jump. It will release its final sales tally later this month, while big retailers such as Target and Best Buy will report their fourth-quarter results later in February or March.

On Thursday, Adobe Analytics said online sales rose 4.9% in the 2023 holiday season, a tad higher than expected. It said consumers were driven by a record-high number of discounts. But shoppers also increasingly turned to "buy now, pay later" options to make purchases, using such payment plans about 14% more than last year.

Star Star staff writer Gita Sitaramiah contributed to this story.