As American consumers continue to spend more online and less at malls, retailers are scrambling to make physical retail stores work for their bottom line.

This week Macy's said it will accelerate the opening of 'small format' stores outside of city centers - opening an additional 30 by 2025.

In 2020, the retailer - known for its larger stores in urban malls - began opening smaller locations, around a fifth of the size, as part of a new business model that would see it shift its footprint from cities to suburban shopping centers. 

Macy's currently has 11 small-format stores across Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Boston and Las Vegas. It will open another in San Diego in November, the company said in a press release.

The original stores were called Market by Macy's, but the company said in August that new small stores would just be called Macy's.

Small format stores, as the company refers to them, are between 30,000 and 50,000 square-foot in size and are found in 'off-mall' locations - free standing stores away from traditional enclosed malls.

Macy's CEO Adrian Mitchell said in a press release on Tuesday that the smaller stores were 'efficient to operate' and allowed the retailer to target 'high-traffic shopping centers'.

Liza Amlani, principal and co-founder of Retail Strategy Group, told Retail Dive in July that Macy's new model marks a move away from the decreasingly profitable 'mall-anchor' approach to retail.