Internet is no longer just 5% of retail.
That $100m rebuild of the Tanforan mall is already being exited and will be converted to a biotech and life sciences hub.
The rest of the general impact to retail, I'm sure everyone is aware of.
I expected it to be higher.
[1] https://www.zippia.com/advice/what-percentage-of-retail-sale...
I peaked in Internet shopping around 2010 when Prime was, you know, good. Since then I have vastly preferred going in person.
Clothes? You can try them on. Electronics? Won't set your house on fire. Food? It's fresh and I get it today.
If you told me in the aughts that Newegg would be a ghost town and that I'd prefer going to Best Buy, I'd've called you a troglodyte moron, but today that's exactly how it is.
These are all anecdotes but I can't possibly be alone in these feelings. 15% sounds about right to me. I order online when I must.. otherwise, I drive to the store.
Segment detail on retail spending / sales is hard to come by, but it seems that overall spend is dominated by food & beverage (though that's less than half the total). Online sales are dominated by electronics and apparel. The latter somewhat surprises me as clothing is very much a feel-and-fit concern, difficult or impossible to assess online.
<https://www.retaildogma.com/number-of-retail-stores-in-the-u...>
<https://www.mobiloud.com/blog/top-ecommerce-categories-in-th...>
Key data for 2024 ecommerce categories:
1. Computer and consumer electronics: $219.33 billion (21.2% of total sales in the US market)
2. Apparel and accessories: $203.75 billion (19.7%)
3. Furniture and home furnishings: $129.45 billion (12.5%)
4. Health and personal care and beauty: $111.03 billion (10.7%)
5. Auto and parts : $86.26 billion (8.3%)
6. Food and beverage: $78.28 billion (7.6%)
7. Toys and hobby: $74.03 billion (7.2%)
8. Books/music/video: $54.02 billion (5.2%)
9. Office equipment and supplies: $19.35 billion (1.9%)I kind of wonder if it's still there.
I doubt that at any point if they asked their patrons and got honest answers, saving time would stand out as a large desire.
What is another problem with metrics, they measure an specific thing that is often very different from the one you think you are measuring.
I doubt that. Many people can save a __lot__ of time by stopping their online shopping habit.
Personally, I tried to put it off because I like the idea of shopping local and supporting local businesses. Plus, shopping in person was familiar and a skill I already had.
In retrospect I think the thing that really pried me away from in-person shopping and into online shopping was that online shopping (Amazon, in particular) serves as a "universal backstop" for whatever I'm looking for. Like, if I try and find an item in a store and I can't find it (or it's too expensive) then I can always find it online. So I throw a request at my local store(s), they miss, and an online retailer catches the request behind them. Once my now-ex got us a Prime membership this got even easier, and now I start most of my orders online (except food, obviously).
I have no idea how typical my story is but the point is that there's more than one road that leads to online shopping, for sure :)
I wonder how long that lasted.
Starbucks doesn't even have chairs in many of their locations now. The prices didn't drop when they took them out, either.
Amazingly, Hillsdale Mall is still operating.[1] It probably survived because it was owned by a local family from 1954 to 2021.