By all accounts, 2016's "Black Friday" was a success, surpassing $3 billion in sales for the first time in history. That might be welcome news for a retail industry that is now unambiguously in crisis, but most of the record spending was done online.
That's just another nail in the coffin for an industry that's seen a raft of bankruptcies lately, with mall-based fixtures like Sports Authority, RadioShack, Aéropostale, American Apparel, and PacSun all going belly-up.
I'm not trying to spoil anyone's festive mood, but it's my job to call it as I see it: This trend for these traditional retailers points straight down. No matter how much you personally spend this shopping season (and I do hope you get some good deals), the explosion of ecommerce, along with weak and/or increasingly selective consumers, makes traditional retailers' destruction inevitable.
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