The "retail apocalypse" seemingly is only getting worse with store closures this year reportedly already exceeding the total for 2018.
Coresight Research, which tracks store openings and closings, said Friday retailers have announced 5,994 store closures and 2,641 store openings as of early April. That compares to 5,864 closures and 3,239 openings for the full year 2018, the Associated Press reported.
The number of closures indicates that traditional retailers are struggling to respond to shoppers’ increasing shift online even as they’re working hard to reinvent their businesses, the AP explained.
“The slowdown we saw in 2018 seems to have been a brief respite in what’s a steady long-term trend,” said Deborah Weinswig, founder and CEO of Coresight Research. “I expect store closures to accelerate in 2019, hitting some 12,000 by year-end,” Weinswig was quoted by Footwearnews.com as saying.
The "retail apocalypse" refers to the closing of a large number of American retail stores beginning in 2016 and apparently not ending anytime soon.
The closures came as consumer preferences changed and sales continued to migrant to online platforms such as Amazon.com Inc. To be sure, many of these retail locations have yet to close, with some companies making plans that date out to 2020.
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