Major retail shopping malls today function, for the most part, frighteningly similarly to how they did 20 years ago. Although individual stores might accept some NFC payments and broadcast beacon coupons to mobile phones, the stores are their own islands, benefiting from none of the attributes of being right next to each other and often sharing a mall LAN.

Consider a very different experience: What if a shopper needs an entirely new outfit — or, for that matter, is trying to obtain everything needed for a new house — and plans to visit five or six stores to accomplish this? Why couldn’t the shopper select all six stores from an app and have the relevant details (sizes, colors, price range, styles, etc.) shared so that purchases can be coordinated? Why not replace six payment-card charges with one? Why not enable all of the returns at one central point? In other words, why not take advantage of the fact that you might have 80 or more stores in one building?

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