They are simply renting you a space. They often use contests and advertisements to bring traffic to their mall. When a mall uses a contest or promotion to bring traffic to their mall, most people enter the contest or promotion and never visit a store on the mall. The sales presentations and techniques that the malls use to sell space prey on the lack of knowledge that many people have about the Internet. People believe the mall, because they do not know any different.
Hits are an inflated sales tool.
As you can see, having several images on one page can generate many hits with only one visit. Internet Mall Customers Speak Out Based on the results of the survey, the majority of Internet mall customers are very unhappy with the results of their Web sites. Ninety percent of the respondents had not received the results they had expected and were not receiving enough business from their site. More than half had not received any business at all. Most of the rest had only received a few orders or inquiries.