Banning Unaccompanied Teenagers from Malls = Increased Sales

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Restricting when and where teenagers can and cannot go isn't a new thing, but more and more American malls are seeing interesting sales results from enforcing parental escort policies, which ban unaccompanied minors from entering shopping malls at all.

Sure, removing the teenage clusters from local malls might clear out some corridor space, but will banning unaccompanied teenagers from shopping malls lead to a rise in sales? Counterintuitively, it seems, the answer is yes.

The Mid Rivers Mall in St. Louis, Mo., started sending away teens at the end of May, and it has resulted in both more customers and sales. After a month, overall mall traffic was up 5 percent on Friday and Saturday nights, and sales were up 3 to 10 percent in all categories, including teen-oriented retailers, according to the property's management.