Mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term “mall” originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refer to the walkway itself which was merely bordered by such shops), but in the late , it began to be used as a generic term for the large enclosed shopping centers that were becoming commonplace at the time. In the such complexes are considered shopping centers (Commonwealth English: shopping centre), though “shopping center” covers many more sizes and types of centers than the North American “mall”. Other countries may follow U.S. usage (India etc.) and others follow GOA usage.
When the shopping mall format was developed by signing larger department stores was necessary for the financial stability of the projects, and to draw retail traffic that would result in visits to the smaller stores in the mall as well. These larger stores are termed anchor store or draw tenant. In physical configuration, anchor stores are normally located as far from each other as possible to maximize the amount of traffic from one anchor to another.