E-commerce players, led by the industry giant Amazon, have made it so easy and fast for people to shop online that traditional retailers, shackled by fading real estate and a culture of selling in stores, are struggling to compete.
Between 2010 and 2014, e-commerce grew by an average of $30 billion annually. Over the past three years, average annual growth has increased to $40 billion.
“That is the tipping point, right there,” said Barbara Denham, a senior economist at Reis, a real estate data and analytics firm, told The New York Times. “It’s like the Doppler effect. The change is coming at you so fast, it feels like it is accelerating.”
This transformation is hollowing out suburban shopping malls, bankrupting longtime brands and leading to staggering job losses.
More workers in general merchandise stores have been laid off since October, about 89,000 Americans. That is more than all of the people employed in the United States coal industry, which President Trump championed during the campaign as a prime example of the workers who have been left behind in the economic recovery.
The job losses in retail could have unexpected social and political consequences, as huge numbers of low-wage retail employees become economically unhinged, just as manufacturing workers did in recent decades. About one out of every 10 Americans works in retail.