Your Economy (No Politics)

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Record pace of brick-and-mortar closings
Apr. 22, 2017 10:12 AM ET|By: Stephen Alpher, SA News Editor
via Suzanne Kapner at the WSJ

Through April 6, there have been 2,880 retail closing announcements this year, more than double the number from the same period in 2016, according to Credit Suisse. At that pace, retailers will close over 8.6K locations in 2017 - more than during the 2008 recession.

> As for bankruptcies, at least 10 retailers have sought it this year - this vs. just nine for all of 2016.

> It's been decades in the making, as a consumer spending boom and the availability of easy money led to a rush to open new stores. "Thousands of new doors opened and rents soared," says Urban Outfitters CEO Richard Hayne. “This created a bubble, and like housing, that bubble has now burst.”

> The land grab, of course, came alongside the rise of the Internet, and online shopping is now doing to clothing and electronics retailers, what it first did to booksellers.

> It's not the first time retail has been turned upside down. In the last cycle, Wal-Mart and Target killed mom-and-pop stores, and Barnes & Noble and Toys "R" Us disrupted smaller chains. Can it adapt again?

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3258810-record-pace-brick-mortar-closings