I thought of a similar idea one day when day dreaming at my old retail job. What if in the future, all the stores become so small, malls could house 1000s of stores. You could go in, touch the product, try it on, but they were all just display models. And than you'd order it in store, and it would be on your doorstep the next day. No need to keep inventory in the store, and you pay a much smaller rental fee. And shrink could be almost reduced to zero.
Here in the UK that's how many shops (and some chains that are still extant) started out.
You went into the local grocers which had a counter/hatch (think post office/bank), You told him what you wanted (or he your weekly order) and he (or usually his boy) would then drop the merchandise off at your house.
The Supermarkets pretty much paid to your corner grocer (economies of scale, later opening hours, more variety of items, the ability to do your shop yourself as and when needed and the increasing wealth of the UK (cars and refrigerators)).
It would be amusing if we went back to a high tech version of that.
If you go to the local Best Buy, they're already on their way to this model. They have Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, and now Microsoft mini-stores within their large space.
Someone has already picked up on the "micro-mall" phrase. They're running a store where merchants rent display space, and they handle the cash registers and stocking for them.
