Mexico’s Malls Explain Why Stores Change Size
- In Mexico’s malls, a chain’s average store size can change even when much of its retail footprint remains largely unchanged.
In recent years, major retail chains in Mexican shopping centers have reorganized their networks, closing some locations while concentrating part of their operations in others. Inditex, for example, has reduced its store count while increasing its total retail space; at the same time, other brands, such as Starbucks, continue to rethink their spaces. These moves are changing where stores are located, but they also raise another question about the space they occupy. Looking at the market as a whole, are chains really changing the size of their stores?
According to SiiLA data, there is no overall trend toward larger or smaller stores. Of the more than 2,000 brands analyzed from mid-2020 through the same period in 2026 across shopping centers in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, just over half maintained virtually the same average store size¹, while 24.1% ended the period with a larger average and 21.7% with a smaller one.
A change in average store size, however, does not mean the number of locations moved in the same direction, because a chain can end up with larger spaces while reducing its number of locations, or add locations while shrinking its stores. That happened among a sizable share of the brands analyzed. One in three brands that increased their average store size ended up with fewer locations, while four in 10 that reduced it ended up with more. Different strategies may lie behind these moves, from concentrating space in fewer stores to expanding a chain’s presence through smaller formats.
Change Happens Mostly Across Locations
To understand why average store size and the number of locations can move in opposite directions, it helps to look at how the networks changed.
The data analyzed indicate that, among brands that ended up with larger or smaller spaces, the adjustment was driven mainly by changes in the locations that made up their networks rather than by expanding or shrinking those that remained. Seven in 10 properties occupied by those brands in 2020 were still part of their networks six years later, and for roughly two in three brands, none of those retained locations recorded a change in space.
This suggests that changing a store’s size within an existing location is not always the simplest option, since expanding generally requires adjacent space to be available. When that is not possible, one alternative is to move to another space within or outside the property. Shrinking a store is not automatic either, because the space it gives up must be separable and available for re-leasing.
When Size Changes, the Adjustment Is Rarely Small
The magnitude of these changes helps explain why the reshaping of store networks matters.
Among brands that ended up with a larger average store size, the typical increase was 28.5%, while among those whose average decreased, the typical reduction was 20.5%. These data do not reveal the specific reasons behind each real estate decision, but they show that when size changed, the adjustments generally were not marginal. Nor is there evidence that the changes were limited to chains with a larger presence, since among locations that remained, the likelihood of recording a change in space was similar regardless of the size of the observed network.
Taken together, the findings reveal an apparent retail paradox. A chain’s average store size can change considerably even when most of the locations in its network show no change in space. The difference lies in the network’s composition, since adding, retaining, or leaving certain properties can alter average store size without changing the space occupied in most locations that remain. For shopping centers, this means that counting how many locations a brand gains or loses is not enough to understand how its demand for space is changing.
SiiLA Market Analytics makes it possible to track how brands’ presence changes across properties and markets, as well as the space they occupy in each. For more details, contact us at contacto@siila.com.mx.
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¹ To avoid treating small variations as changes in size, a ±5% band was used, within which a brand was considered virtually unchanged.
