Beijing Scitech Plaza, the oldest mall in the city, is set to close indefinitely. Opened in 1992, the mall was the benchmark for high-end department stores in Beijing. It was established under the collaboration of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the Japanese retail group Yaohan. On its opening day on December 20, 1992, it attracted a huge crowd and gathered much attention and acclaim.

Located at a busy business district with high consumption activity in Beijing, Scitech is not only the first luxurious shopping center in Beijing. Scitech created other "firsts" in the Beijing business community as well. It was the first mall with the most automatic escalators and computerized cash register system. Its employees had the highest academic qualifications. It was also the first high-end boutique department store to bring luxury brands to Beijing. Scitech also took the lead in introducing the concept of Western festivals such as Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day and Christmas into the Beijing business circle, attracting many foreign guests in the midst. After the expiration of its cooperation with Yaohan in 1995, Scitech began to run operations by itself.

From the beginning of its operation to 2000s, the mall was crowded with people. In the 1990s, Scitech housed various high-end brands like Pierre Cardin. It made Scitech one of the more sophisticated malls as compared to others in Beijing at that time. However, when the 2010s came around, bringing about the establishment of malls like SKP and Joy City in Beijing, the crowd in Scitech dwindled. The mall became practically empty, particularly on weekdays. No matter how much discounts was offered, the mall failed to attract consumers. Most of the people visiting the mall were those working nearby coming to kill their time or grab a bite.

According to the staff of Wangfujing Group, the company that managed the operations of Scitech, the mall will be upgraded after ceasing operations, but there is no further information that can provide a clearer picture. As the matter of fact, even Wangfujing Group itself is unclear about the future of the mall.

The general analysis of commercial real estate believes that the collapse of old department stores is mainly due to several reasons, which include

1. The impact of e-commerce;

2. Homogeneous competition;

3. State-owned systems;

4. High expenditure and cost;

5. Innovation in shopping malls.

In order to resolve these problems, in the past two years, the old department stores in Beijing have transformed into younger and hipper malls in order to attract younger crowds. The question is whether such transformation would really solve the problem, because some listed companies that focus on a younger image are also facing difficulties in their operations and have landed themselves in difficult situations. Moreover, without the middle-aged and elderly people who have a better ability to patronize high-end brands, it is questionable if the young consumers could support the retail business.

This analysis to deconstruct and bring clarity to the reasoning of the closure of older shops is not exactly accurate. Anbound believes that the main reasons are:

1. The acceleration of urbanization has destroyed the structural system of business, causing the outlet business to become overwhelmingly concentrated. There resulting lack of diversity in businesses has therefore made it unsustainable;

2. The impact of e-commerce;

3. The rapidly rising costs of doing business, and the lag of commercial innovation is that is far behind;

4, Operational problems and inaccurate market positioning.

Among these problems, the issue of the speed of urbanization is the most important aspect. It is the root cause and provides the basis for other problems.

Based on the structure of the problems, in order to solve these problems, the most important point in the solution is that new centralized style of business must adopt a comprehensive three-dimensional street model. The street businesses that have been destroyed the wave of urbanization will now need to relocate to new and centralized large-scale complexes in order to display the three-dimensional commercialization of the street at such commercial complexes. As such, a commercial complex should generate the feeling of the former street-based commerce one steps inside, giving visitors a chance to enjoy the commercial space like the streets in the past. When this is achieved, patrons will come not only for shopping, but also for enjoying the environment and spending their leisure time here.

To achieve such a goal, the richness of business formats is of course necessary, but more importantly, the design and establishment of the three-dimensional street business atmosphere must be well executed. Only when consumption becomes an integral part of life, can the future business environment be injected with a new vitality. This will cause competition to remain at a moderate level while keeping costs controllable. This is not just a matter about designing a business, but also involves matters such as urban management policies and the development of strategies.

Final analysis conclusion:
To sum, the existing urban business doesn't appear to have a future. An unimaginable scenario to consider is that the city streets will be quiet and devoid of activity. In this scenario, all human activity is carried out on computers. A city like this is theoretically not even a city, and is an empty slate. Humans have become appendages of computers, and there is no difference between working and leisure time. Humans will spend their entire lives in the virtual lives of computers. It is now high time for change.