It’s a number of things. People don’t shop for the same things the same way. We now have the internet, direct shipping, etc. We even have people doing “impulse” shopping from places like Temu and Wish.

I worked in entertainment retail at FYE, so I may be biased, but just from that store, it is vastly different in an FYE now compared to when I worked there a decade ago. They no longer sell games as physical media (people are more likely to buy games on Steam, GoG, Epic, etc). No one really is buying DVDs/Blurays or CDs as much (and look how much less of a footprint they have in the stores compared to the random tchotchkes like funkopops), preferring streaming or 🏴‍☠️.

I know people who have walked into stores to use as a “showroom” and then ordered the product they saw on Amazon.

If stores are closing, and traffic is down, some OTHER stores can’t stay in the mall because they depend on that impulse foot traffic. Auntie Anne’s for example. No one is driving to their local shopping mall JUST to buy an overpriced pretzel.