US retail industry will face a large area of ​​closed shop

A report from the United States stated that by 2018, the US retail industry will usher in a large-scale store closure due to the expiration of a $70 billion retail lease contract. According to the report, in the next 48 months, 6% of office supply vendor leases, 51% of franchise retailer leases, and 47% of convenience store leases are about to expire. The US shopping malls will definitely look like they are.

Under the background of e-commerce impact and high cost, large-scale retailers are maximizing “self-insurance” in the market with large capital operations. As more and more retail activities are moved online, merchants are reassessing the existence of physical stores.

Statistics show that in the past three years, among the top 100 retailers in the United States, the number of stores has declined from more than 12% to less than 3%. According to this trend, the number of shops that currently occupy leading positions in the premium store category, such as Sears, Staples, etc., will also become smaller, and most of them will close nearly 10% of the stores.

However, compared with retailers, leases for pharmacy chains, auto retailers, and auto parts suppliers have been expanding for the same period, with growth rates of 15%, 20%, and 28%, respectively. Since the second half of 2012, large retailers have also become very difficult to make profits in China, and the tides of retail stores such as supermarket chains, convenience stores, and department stores have started quietly. Statistics show that in the first half of this year, China’s major retail enterprises closed a total of 158 stores, far exceeding the number of closed stores in 2013 for the entire year. Among them, supermarkets had the largest number of store closures, accounting for 146. Compared with the highly efficient and mature IT systems and logistics of US retailers, the development of Chinese retail companies is less mature and less scaled, and the impact of e-commerce is even more fragile. This has also become the most important reason for the closure of large domestic retailers in China.