Nova Scotia Malls Appeal to their Shoppers
Greenwood Mall, Mic Mac Mall and Halifax Shopping Centre went out on a limb recently with their shoppers. Recent legislative changes to gift cards in their province have forced the malls (managed by GGP, Ivanhoe Cambridge and 20 VIC) to discontinue their gift card programs. The gift card programs relied on small bank fees charged to the customers after 15 months, and new provincial legislation forbids those fees. So the malls banded together to ask shoppers to fight back against the legislation.
Bring Back Our Mall Gift Cards is a website put together by the malls to inform shoppers about the situation, and to ask them to take action by sending letters to their MLAs.
Now the shopping centers report that shoppers have flocked to their cause. In just three weeks, over one thousand letters to Nova Scotia MLAs have been collected at guest services or sent through the website. It’s the results the malls were hoping for, but they couldn’t be positive their shoppers would side with them when starting this campaign. It remains to be seen whether the government will agree to the changes the malls hope for, but it’s great to see that their shoppers are behind them.
