If your site sells cars, links to car accessories are a must. And those car accessory sites will want to link back to your site. The interconnected links do more than just build traffic from other sites. Many search engines also use links to determine placement. For a fee, a group will put a link to your site on a mall and guarantee that other stores in the mall won't compete with you.
Online malls market the mall, and more importantly get the malls listed on search engines.
Smith expects the mall idea, although not perfect, to boost business. It increases your exposure. No longer are sites just trying to sell you something. They want you to be interested in the product, and they want you to return. It's like remodeling a store.