Brick and Mortar Retail Continues to Vanish

To add to the sobering news on brick and mortar retail in our earlier post, new articles point to continued weakness in the retail market and more store closing. A recent WSJ article lays out what is currently happening and compares it to more historic trends to highlight its magnitude. As this article is not publicly available, we are going to list a few of the key quotes below:

• More than 2,880 stores closed from Jan – early April 2017. That is twice the amount closing last year for the same period
• If that trend continues, there will be 8,600 store closings this year – much more than closed during the 2008 recession.
• 10 Large retailers have filed for bankruptcy as of mid April 2017. This compares with 9 total large retailers in ALL of 2016.
• Last year, E-Commerce sales increased from 10.5% to 15.5% of all retail.

Retail is experiencing a large transformation – and this will have a strong impact on brick-and-mortar stores – forcing many to close. This will result in loss of property tax revenue, sales tax revenue, and will force communities to deal with abandoned buildings that bring down values and often increase crime.