Everyone: Retail is dying! Stores are closing! Me: Let'

You can't turn on the news or look at your social media feed without seeing something about yet another chain closing stores or filing for bankruptcy. Malls are looking a bit different these days. It's quite sad to see such landmark stores packing up shop and looking like ghost towns. Dwindling are some of our mall classics like JcPenny, Sears, The Limited, and Payless (just to name a few). In fact, I read a stat the other that said up to 25% off all shopping centers are expected to close in the coming years.

All in all, it looks like a retail apocalypse. Of course, all of this began happening right when we launched our online store. Should we be scared? No. In fact, I am quite optimistic about the future of retail.

In my humble opinion, retail isn't dying. It's just CHANGING. We shop online more and more these days - everyone knows that. However, I think there is more. I think we crave a couple of different things that some stores haven't been able to accommodate: Experience and uniqueness.

I believe that some of these stores got too big and weren't able to deliever a stellar customer service experience. And, blame it on "special-snowflake" syndrome, but we all want to feel unique. We may want to be stylish, but that doesn't mean we want to look like everybody else. Thus, we crave more specialized retailers and boutiques.

Word on the street is that the coming years will bring us the rise of the micro-retailers. These are stores and shops that will specialize in certain looks and products so that customer can find just the right fit. Sound familiar? I sure hope so...

Cheers,

s