Is The US Retail Industry At A Turning Point?

On the sides of the SoHo Cove area covered with cobbled streets. Chanel (Chanel) handbags and Archaeopteryx (Arc'teryx) jackets are displayed in shops like museum exhibits, which remind people of how many neighborhoods there are. fashion 。 But the rent here is weakening, and the number of vacant stores is rising.

The real estate that most retailers are looking for now is not in the SoHo District, but in the Broolyn enclave, which once owned a shipbuilding history outside the town of eight miles from the red Hooke block. E-commerce companies compete to rent part of the huge warehouse space, which covers an area of 57 acres, so that they can deliver the same order on the same day.

The relocation of New York shopping center is of great significance, reflecting the overall restructuring of the retail industry in the United States.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, the e-commerce enterprises, led by Amazon, have made it easy and fast for people to shop online, so that traditional retailers who are trapped in the recession and real estate and sales culture are struggling to compete with them. This spanformation was gradually formed after years of imperceptibly. But economists, retail workers and real estate investors all say that the pace seems to be accelerating in recent months.

From 2010 to 2014, e-commerce grew by an average of US $30 billion per year. In the past three years, the average annual growth has increased to $40 billion.

"This is the turning point," says Reis Barbara, a senior economist at the real estate data analysis firms, Barbara. It's like the Doppler effect. The change is coming fast and it is accelerating. "

This spanformation is emptying suburban shopping malls, bankrupting many historical brands and leading to a surprising number of unemployed people.

Since October, more and more employees have been laid off in ordinary stores, and there are about 89000 unemployed people. This is more than the entire population of the entire coal industry, and President Trump used to defend the coal industry during the campaign, treating them as a typical example of the deserted workers in the economic recovery.

The unemployment of retail workers has caused a large number of low wage retailers to lose their financial security (just like the manufacturing workers decades ago), which may bring unexpected social and political consequences. Nowadays, one out of every ten Americans is engaged in retailing.

Mark Cohen, a former Sears manager at Columbia Business School, who is responsible for the retail learning program at Columbia University, said: "the retail industry has undergone tremendous changes, which will bring about changes in employment."

At the same time, shops have closed down this year, more than the number of stores closed down in 2008. At that time, Americans were bogged down in foreclosures and investment losses, which greatly reduced shopping expenditure.

At the same time, while physical stores are closing down, consumer confidence remains strong and unemployment rate is low. This indicates that ongoing structural changes are in progress, rather than a normal business cycle. In short, the traditional retail industry may never recover.

People can receive their order books or gardening hoses within 24 hours after ordering goods, which will enable them to enjoy instant shopping. Many consumers are accustomed to stereotyped mannequins or haggard salesmen in various department stores. It is no surprise to them that the structural changes in the retail industry are coming.

The modern retail industry is losing its character, which is quite different from that of many department stores after World War II. During that period, the new expressway came back and forth between the suburbs, which brought a large number of passenger flow, and finally promoted the rise of large, convenient shopping centers with plenty of parking spaces and tidal monuments of consumerism.

Over time, shopping malls have developed to the size of an indoor city. The Mall of America in Minnesota opened in 1992, covering a vast space, equivalent to nine Yankee Stadium.

Now, many of these once glorious shopping centres are empty, or spanformed into trampoline parks and community schools. "There are too many buildings in the retail industry," said Bruce Batkin, chief executive officer of Terra Capital Partners, Partners, a commercial real estate lending institution.

Last week, Batkin received a call from a homeowner, hoping to refinance his 10 year loan for his shopping center. Batkin did not accept the deal, because it was too difficult to predict the future of the property in the next 10 years.

He said: "the retail industry has changed so rapidly that the industry has a year equivalent to the year of the dog's life (that is, the seven year in reality).

However, many investors did not give up because they believed that online retail and traditional stores could coexist or even develop together. Retailers hope to attract customers to turn off computer screens and enter shops by providing attractive display and quality service. Amazon's attempt to run its own stores may be the best evidence that physical retailers still work.

However, in fact, some practitioners say that they often spend time and effort in serving customers in the store, only to get those people to leave the shop and buy the things they want online. This usually affects the income of salesmen: many salesmen are commissions, but the royalty base only includes their sales in stores.

At Bloomingdale, Blunmin Dyer, a member of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, argues that the company should improve the royalty policy for salesmen to help promote e-commerce business, such as helping customers choose goods that they will order online.

Stuart Appelbaum, the trade union chairman, said: "if you want to create a store experience that attracts customers to enter the store, you need to improve the enthusiasm of your employees." Stuart Appelbaum said.

A spokesman for Blunmin Dyer department store said that the company is now negotiating with the trade union on a so-called "integrity" new contract and is gradually putting resources into the company's employees.

The retail industry has been ups and downs. Because of the change of style and brand, employees often jump from one store to another. But even for many retail salesmen who are accustomed to seasonal unemployment and experience, this downturn is not the same.

Hilda Avoll, 27, lost her job last month in the lower Manhattan District Sax Fifth Avenue. After several different clothing stores' work, she said she was not ready to stay in the retail business anymore, and she was trying to find a different profession.

In the past, her salary was $16 per hour. She said, "I really like helping customers create new styles, but now work is not as stable as before."

Some economists say this is the market economy. After the recession, employment in the retail sector is the main driving force for economic recovery. But now that the economy is strong, it is theoretically necessary to push retail employees to create jobs that create more wealth and are more likely to provide high salaries.

Moodie, chief economist of Moody s Analytics, said: "this is the best situation, and this is the destruction of creativity." (s Analytics) We are cutting the uncompetitive part of the economy. This is painful for those who are in it, but this is the way we develop and create wealth. "

But Cohen of Columbia University says the rise of the whole industry will not proceed in an orderly manner. It is expected to be closed in a matter of weeks. The Sitex private group, the private sector, expects to set up hundreds of people in warehouses such as red Hooke.

Although these distribution centers can absorb the unemployed population in some retail stores, it is impossible to make up for all the gaps. Because most operations are automated, the skills and understanding required are also different from those of selling jeans.

Cohen said: "in recent years, because of the frequent news of store closures, the crisis followed. People are losing their jobs. There is nowhere else to go. "

"Theoretically, this is the self regulation of market economy, but in the spanitional period, how do people survive?"

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