Your Kids Don’t Need The Mall To Experience Claire’s

If you spent any time at a Kansas City area mall, or perhaps the mall in Columbia or Jefferson City you may have done some shopping for yourself or your girlfriend at Claire's. Well, there's no need to head to the mall anymore, all you need to do is head to Walgreens.

Walgreens has announced that they will carry the jewelry brand Claire's in over 4,4000 Walgreens locations by the end of the month. This is according to a story in Supermarket News.

I remember picking up some earrings for my high school girlfriend at Claire's back in the day, and I might have gotten my ear pierced there. Although I may have gone to Piercing Pagoda, remember them? They're still around too, I checked. I bought some cheap "rockstar" earrings at Claire's for myself, too.

They were purple, white, and silver stars that dangled from a stud. This was during my teenage phase of trying to be a rock star. And I probably picked them up while shopping for one of my high school girlfriends. But I digress.

Claire's faces the same issue that many specialty mall retailers face. How do they survive in a world where the mall is no longer THE place to hang out?

Supermarket News says it's part of Claire's strategy to extend its brand via retailers including grocery, drug, toy, appeal, and department stores. Walgreens isn't the only place Claire's jewelry can be found either, they have relationships with 40 such retailers.

Could this be the future for some specialty mall retailers? It's possible, especially in the beauty sector as Supermarket News says the beauty industry generates more than $100 billion in revenue worldwide, and more and more supermarkets want in on that revenue.

While it wouldn't surprise me if someday you could get your ears pierced at a drugstore or supermarket, I'm not sure this would work for all mall specialty stores. Can you imagine a time when teenage boys will be snickering at the irreverent items on the end cap or aisle dedicated to Spencer's Gifts? Yeah, I don't think that will happen.