Countless stories have been told about the death of in-store retail at the hands of e-commerce. While the volume of online shopping has seen significant growth and seen much greater consumer awareness, it still only represents barely 20% of total retail spending. The growth of e-commerce leads to the narrative of store closings, as retailers shrink their physical footprint. These retail trends- the expansion of e-commerce and an overall contraction of physical stores- are real, though there is still an obvious appeal to brick and mortar.
There may even be some growth opportunities in the physical retail sector. Consider- foot traffic in malls actually rose in pre-COVID 2020 compared to 2019 levels, climbing 10.7% from February 2019 levels.
Take a moment to digest that- foot traffic ROSE last year, prior to the pandemic.
We don’t know what would have happened from there, since numbers fell off completely by April 2020, as state closures and lockdowns took hold. What we do know is that there was an upward trend by year end (2020) and there is hope that it will continue into the 2021 new year.
This will be interesting to watch! See below for more context.
~ Brian Kasal- The Leadership Matrix
Click here- Surprise! This chart shows holiday shoppers did rush to malls in final weeks of 2020
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