While legacy retailers across America shutter locations and retreat from shopping malls, Spencer's is moving in the opposite direction, expanding and reopening its 60-year-old flagship store at Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey, the very place where the novelty chain first went from catalog company to physical retailer back in 1963.
The reopened store, now situated in the mall's JCPenney wing, grew from roughly 1,750 square feet to approximately 2,700 square feet of sales floor. Spencer's called it a "modernized design and enhanced shopping experience," The Sun reported. The company now operates more than 680 stores nationwide and runs an online marketplace from its headquarters in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey.
The move matters beyond one quirky retailer's square footage. It is a bet, with real capital behind it, that physical retail still has a future, even inside the American shopping mall, an institution that critics have spent a decade writing off.
Spencer's traces its origins to 1947, when it launched as a mail-order catalog business. The company opened its first brick-and-mortar store at Cherry Hill Mall in 1963 and operated under the name Spencer Gift before adopting its current branding in 2003. Cherry Hill Mall itself is now 63 years old.
A spokesperson told the Daily Journal that the Cherry Hill location is "near and dear to our hearts being our very first store." The store features a faux cornerstone near the entrance bearing the year 1947 and a plaque outside marking its significance in company history.
Spencer's is reportedly one of only two original tenants still operating at Cherry Hill Mall. The other is Macy's, which opened originally as Strawbridge & Clothier before changing names under new ownership in 2006.
The decision to relocate within the mall and expand rather than close stands out against a broader landscape of retail contraction. Across the country, anchor tenants like JCPenney have been pulling out of malls they once defined, leaving behind vacant wings and uncertain futures for smaller tenants who depended on foot traffic from the big names.
Spencer's moved into the JCPenney wing at Cherry Hill, a detail that raises an obvious question about whether the department store vacated that space entirely. The company did not address that directly, but the symbolism is hard to miss: a novelty chain expanding into territory a department-store giant may have abandoned.
A Spencer's spokesperson framed the expansion as part of a deliberate strategy:
"When we reviewed the opportunity to update and expand our store... we were excited to reinvest and recommit to being in the mall for the long term."
That language, "reinvest and recommit", is the kind of thing corporate communications offices produce by the ream. But in this case, the company backed it up with a physical expansion, not a press release about "exploring options."
The spokesperson added that the move is "in line with our long-term real estate strategy: To operate in high-quality retail environments that meet our customers where they are." In an era when many chains talk about meeting customers online and closing stores to cut overhead, Spencer's is explicitly choosing the opposite path.
Spencer's is not the only tenant making moves at Cherry Hill Mall. The 63-year-old shopping center is preparing for a wave of retail changes. A two-story, 120,000-square-foot Dick's World of Sports, complete with its own athletic field, is expected to open near Spencer's later this year. Expanded locations for Lids, Journeys, and T-Mobile are also in the works, along with a new food court tenant, DoneRight Doner Kebab, a Turkish cuisine restaurant. Opening dates for those additions have not been disclosed.
That kind of activity at a single mall cuts against the narrative that physical retail is simply dying. It suggests something more selective is happening: malls that invest in their properties and attract tenants willing to commit can still draw shoppers. The ones that don't maintain their spaces and lose anchors face a grimmer trajectory. Some iconic malls have faced demolition entirely, replaced by big-box redevelopments that erase decades of community identity.
Spencer's has always occupied a strange niche, part gag-gift shop, part pop-culture outlet, part store your parents weren't sure you should be wandering into at the mall. Its third-largest sales category, behind T-shirts and apparel and body jewelry, is sexual health products. That mix has kept it relevant with younger shoppers even as other mall staples faded.
Lori Tesoro, Spencer's Director of Public Relations, leaned into the brand's identity in comments to Patch:
"Spencer's is about self-expression and discovering something unexpected. We want customers to leave having had fun and feeling like Spencer's is a place they can always be themselves, no matter who that is."
She also emphasized the in-store experience as central to the company's appeal, saying there is "an energy in our stores that makes each visit unique." That pitch, come to the store because you can't replicate the experience online, is the same argument independent retailers have been making for years. Spencer's is testing whether a chain with 680-plus locations can pull it off at scale.
The company's parent organization also owns Spirit Halloween, which is preparing to open more than 1,500 pop-up stores for the fall season. That seasonal juggernaut, famous for taking over vacant retail spaces every autumn, gives the parent company an unusual dual presence in American retail, one permanent chain investing in long-term leases, and one temporary operation that thrives precisely because so many storefronts sit empty.
Spencer's expansion at Cherry Hill fits into a small but notable trend of retailers returning to or doubling down on physical stores after years of contraction. Bed Bath & Beyond has attempted a brick-and-mortar comeback through co-branded stores following its 2023 bankruptcy. Party City resurfaced inside hundreds of Staples locations after its own bankruptcy shuttered every standalone store.
Whether these moves represent a genuine retail revival or a series of one-off gambles remains an open question. The companies making these bets are not doing so because online shopping has slowed down. They are doing it because they believe certain customers still want a reason to walk into a store, and that the right product, in the right space, can give them one.
Spencer's has an advantage most comeback stories lack: it never left. The Cherry Hill flagship didn't close and reopen under new ownership or a licensing deal. It relocated within the same mall, got bigger, and reopened with a company that has been continuously operating for nearly eight decades behind it.
Tesoro put the Cherry Hill reopening in historical terms:
"Cherry Hill holds a special place in Spencer's history. We're proud to continue that legacy in a refreshed space that celebrates our roots while giving today's customers even more to discover."
The specifics of the reopening date were not disclosed, and the company did not release sales figures or projections for the expanded location. What it did release was a clear signal: Spencer's is not shrinking. It is not pivoting to online-only. It is not licensing its name to someone else's shelves. It is spending money on a bigger store in the mall where it all started.
In an economy where so many legacy brands have been hollowed out, sold off, or reduced to a website and a memory, a company that actually builds something instead of retreating is worth noticing, even if what it's building still sells lava lamps and gag gifts.