As the “retail apocalypse” canard continues to grab the odd headline in the media, the data and the facts are consistently telling us quite a different story.
As the “retail apocalypse” canard continues to grab the odd headline in the media, the data and the facts are consistently telling us quite a different story: a story of an industry in transition, but still growing, according to the National Retail Federation. The most recent retail sales figures released by the Census Bureau were up a robust 4.2% year-on-year in July. Every month this year has seen a steady increase in sales over the same period last year.
Nonetheless, we keep hearing about record-level store closings and how this portends doom for the retail industry. But we’ve argued that this data is drawn from a biased sample. IHL Group recently published a report that offers a thorough and complete debunking of the main false premise supporting the retail apocalypse myth. Their data shows a net increase in store openings of over 4,000 in 2017. In fact, for each company closing a store, 2.7 companies are opening stores.