Online shopping alone is not the reason for the demise of the mall.

TORON TO • Malls were once a go- to shopping destination and a teenager’s hangout of choice, but now face an uncertain future as some of their biggest tenants lay off employees, file for creditor protection or hang a “closed” sign in the window and leave for good.

Beleaguered retailers have been quick to blame online shopping for their decline. But retail experts say scapegoating e- commerce is an oversimplification of a multi-faceted probl em: changing consumer tastes, demographic shifts, technological advances and other f orces also add to their woes.

“There’s a lot more going on than just e- commerce,” said Armin Begic, director of the retail business group at market- research f i rm NPD Group. “There’s definitely a lot more going on under the surface.”

Re t ail ers fret over ecommerce’s growth, even though it actually constitutes a small percentage of shopping in Canada. In December 2017, e- commerce accounted for nearly $ 1.9 billion or 3.4 per cent of total retail sales in the country, according to Statistic Canada, suggesting annual growth of about four per cent from 2016.

While the online phenomenon has eaten into the bottom line of brick- andmortar store chains, the rise of specialty retailers with stand- alone stores and discount stores, including Walmart and Dollarama, are also luring shoppers away from former Canadian mall stalwarts like Sears.

Meanwhile, technological advances have replaced or diminished consumer desire for certain products, said Begic. Higher- quality smart phone cameras, for example, have fewer consumers opting for traditional cameras, hitting photography- centric stores such as Blacks Photography hard. The chain closed its 59 Canadian stores in 2015.

The popularity of t he sharing economy — including online trading platforms like Bunz — has lessened the need for buying new items, he said, while an increase in delivery services has weakened demand for bricks-andmortar space.

It’s also possible that Canada simply has built up too much real estate devoted to retail, he suggested.

The country boasts 94 square metres of retail space for every 100 people, according to data from the Shopping Centre Council of Australia, far more than the United Kingdom — at 44 square metres — and Germany — at 22 square metres.

The demographic makeup of the country is also playing a role. Millennials, the age cohort loosely defined as being born in the 1980s and 90s, are increasingly important to retailers and those who aren’t able to capture the attention of the techsavvy generation tend to struggle.

Begic highlights how millennials don’t gravitate to car ownership as much as their parents did, making them less likely to drive to a mall and more likely to shop online or stick to local stores.

They also prefer to spend more money on experiences such as travel over material things, he said.

Millennials will also ignore stores that don’t cater to the experiences they want, said retail analyst Bruce Winder.

Toronto’s Yorkdale mall seems to have cracked the code for drawing in consumers with premium retailers and services, Winder suggested.

Yorkdale leads Canada’s malls in sales per square footage, according to the Retail Council of Canada.