Bankruptcy is Us

[Undertoad]

But normal people want the interaction and being able to touchy feely the goods.

There's a new "normal"! Because in 2016, people made 51% of purchases online.

http://fortune.com/2016/06/08/online...ing-increases/

[An annual survey] polled more than 5,000 consumers who make at least two online purchases in a three-month period. According to results, shoppers now make 51% of their purchases online, compared to 48% in 2015 and 47% in 2014.

As online shopping accelerates, so does the use of smartphones to make purchases. The survey showed that 44% of smartphone users made buys through their devices, compared to 41% a year ago.

Walmart is closing 3% of their US stores this year! Amazon and Walmart grew at the same rate last year but Amazon did $82.7 billion in sales while Walmart did... can you guess... $12.5 billion!

2/3rds of people surveyed compare stores prices with prices on their phone.

Mark my words... the malls are going to be closing. Only big destination malls will survive, but even those are going to have to change. (KoP Mall, nation's second-largest and the only one visited by two Cellar moderators this week: instead of a Sears anchoring its western end, there's now a Dick's Sporting Goods. That's unthinkable 20 years ago.)

JC Penney is closing 138 more stores after it closed a bunch in 2015. Macy's may not survive. HH Gregg just died. Kmart is only barely alive - and its shoppers are not exactly the online sorts.

And all this is happening in a growing economy!