I don’t see how retail stores stay open. The amount of regulation, taxes, liability, theft, employees, stock on hand, utilities, rent, etc etc one requires makes it unlikely that you could ever compete with online retailers who have the product delivered to your door usually at a lower price. You have to pay all of that even when you are not profitable in the store.
It appears that online retailers have all the advantages.
Exactly, government policies of excessive taxation and burdens such as required worker healthcare, workers comp, etc all lead to companies moving away from brick and mortar and full time employees to ecommerce. Once again, the greedy government forces people to "change", that's the kind of change Obama meant. One must change to avoid harassing government policies.
“It appears that online retailers have all the advantages.”
Yep,and they have made it very easy.
About 90% of my shopping is now done on-line.
With the LL Bean cc you can ship both ways free. In other words,buy several sizes,try them on,and ship back what doesn’t fit.
Zappos does this also.
Amazon has everything else I need.
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Retail stores are being used more and more as display warehouses, where people go to check out the merchandise but then go buy it online.
Many stores are fighting back by matching online prices, but I don’t think that is a sustainable model.