Today another retailer announced it will be closing up shop, Bebe Stores, Inc. (BEBE), making it the 15th retailer to go under this year. By the end of May BEBE plans to liquidate its approximately 180 stores. This nearly matches the 18 retail bankruptcies for all of 2016.
Source: S&P Global: Market Intelligence
With the consumer accounting for nearly 70% of economic growth in the U.S., are the struggles of brick and mortar retailers a sign of a weakening consumer? What the data seems to be suggesting is overall retail sales are growing at a decent pace. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce's most recent report on retail sales, it is noted, "Total sales for the January 2017 through March 2017 period were up 5.4 percent [versus] the same period a year ago. What is occurring though is consumer buying habits have transitioned to online or e-commerce sales versus a trip to the brick & mortar sores/malls.
The two below charts show the break down of e-commerce sales and brick & mortar sales on both a dollar basis as well as a percentage basis.
As the blue line in the above chart shows, brick & mortar retail sales are growing at a greater than 2% YOY pace. Certainly this is a slower rate of growth versus a few years ago; however, it is growth nonetheless. On the other hand, the growth in e-commerce sales is moving forward at a mid-teens pace and has done so for over five years. Consequently, the brick & mortar retail headwinds are mostly attributable to the changing buying habits of consumers and their preference for the convenience online shopping provides.
This shift in buying habits, and now driven by Amazon, is covered in the below video presentation. The video covers Amazon and its destruction of retail and highlights the destruction of “brands’ that is occurring as a result of the growth in the preference of e-commerce buying.
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