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Death of a department store
November 6 | Comments (0)
Facinating article by ATKearney about department stores and their collective pain in a specialists market.
Traditional department stores are caught in the middle. Once thriving and profitable, many are struggling to compete with hard discounters and high-end specialty shops. So far, these new competitors seem to be winning, with industry analysts ready to sing department stores swan song. After years of teetering on the brink, are department stores doomed to obscurity? Or are they poised for a surprisecomeback?
Some very insightful comments on the future of retail. Is the same thing happening online? I'm not sure. Amazon and Ebay are both similar to department stores and they seem to be the runaway successes. Although, there is still plenty of room for the smaller stores to make large profit in niche markets, and perhaps erode the base of customers that the "online department stores" have created.
Early days, we'll just have to wait and see.