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The mall owners, already squeezed by e-commerce and spending billions on reworking property to attract buyers, have a new headache: retailers deduct the profitability for goods purchased online from their sales data.

David Simon, chief executive officer of Simon Property Group Inc., says that "a significant number" of tenants underestimate sales and that the company, the largest owner of a shopping center in the US, is negotiating with them to find a solution.

For owners of leased retail landlords in America, sales per square foot are a critical indicator used by investors to assess their financial condition. In addition to dollars that have lost themselves, a small amount can damage the reputation of a shopping center on Wall Street.

The problem Simon faces comes from rent, which is based on how much the retailer sells in his physical store. Typically, the lessee is paid the base amount, and then gives the lessor sales reduction exceeding the threshold. Sometimes a retailer does not have a basic rent and is obliged to pay only a percentage of sales started in the property.

"We get the coloring of Internet returns," Simon said at a conference call with analysts on Friday. "Every retailer is different, and so far there is no standard answer. It should be considered in future lease agreements. " He refused to quantify the problem, but said it was "material", informing analysts that "we have the right to audit, and in our usual procedure we saw some sales anomalies."

Tension intensifies the growing list of problems for owners of retail properties, as the growth of online shopping leads to the destruction of income from brick masonry. Landlords dump large sums to reconfigure their shopping centers, and customers that clients can not use online, such as restaurants and gyms.

Return management is an important issue for both landlords and retailers, and e-commerce has only complicated the situation. Anyone who bought a pair of shoes or a sweater on the Internet can confirm that buyers are more likely to return the clothes they buy online than they chose in person in the store. According to David Sobe, CEO of Happy Returns Inc., who works in shopping centers and other shopping centers, the rate of return for online purchases is estimated at four times higher than in stores of physical stores. for retailers who do not have a large number of physical stores.

Bad for the store and landlord, right? Not necessary. When it comes time to seek a refund, people prefer to receive it personally, rather than typing a label, making a trip to the post office and waiting for weeks until cash appears on their bank accounts, Sobobi said. This usually works in favor of the owner, since anything that causes a trip to the mall can stimulate additional purchases.

It's hard to see how the various aspects of online sales and subsequent returns affect, "said Daniel Hurwitz, CEO of retail real estate consultant Raider Hill Advisors and lead director of GGP Inc., the second-largest US shopping center owner. For example, if a consumer trades an item for one of a different size or color, inventory in this place is reduced, even if the money has not been transferred to the cash register, said Hurwitz.

Since traders create their online operations, profitability will accumulate and become an even more pressing problem.

"The trading business has become obsessed with sales per square foot as an absolute measure of success," Hurwitz said. "Reporting on sales has become less clean, because there are so many moving parts with online revenue. As an industry, it would be prudent to come up with a way to deal with this. "