Fast Company
BY Elizabeth Segran

Everybody, I'd like to announce that the retail apocalypse has been officially cancelled. It turns out, humans do occasionally like putting down their smartphones, leaving their sofas, and going to a real brick and mortar store to make a purchase.

Over the last three years, thousands of stores shuttered–and dozens of companies went bankrupt. In 2017 alone, 7000 stores closed their doors, and many brands with large retail footprints filed for Chapter 11, including Toys R Us, Gymboree, Payless, Wet Seal, and The Limited. Many experts expected 2018 to be even more disastrous to the retail industry.

But that didn't happen. In 2018, about half as many stores closed as the year before, and in an interest twist, we saw the rebirth of physical retail, with startups developing their own take on stores and large real estate companies rethinking how malls should be designed. Looking back, the problem wasn't that people had gotten too lazy to leave their homes; it's that brands had become complacent about making shopping IRL a worthwhile experience. Read more.