Then in the day of amazon prime free two day air, I guess they really are doomed. You simply can't compete with the economies of scale and purchasing power of an amazon while at the same time paying a 5-7% penalty, a lease, insurance, utilities, shrinkage, etc.

Let's say 1 in 10 things you purchase you need to buy today. That means 90% of purchases should be online the way you see it. But if local stores suddenly lost 90% of their business, the prices on the 10% would have to go way up. They'd have to stop stocking a lot of items, lower inventory on the rest. Their buying power would be destroyed. The enablers of retail would dry up - distributors close, regional truckers take jobs with ups, they tear down the storefronts and put in housing.

Once you lose something it can be hard as hell to get it back. Want to buy US made textiles? Good luck. To buy local produce I am a member of a CSA - I have to pay for a year upfront, pick up my box between 4:30-6:30 friday, have no real control over what I get, if I need extra for a dinner party i'm out of luck, and I think there is a 2-3 year waiting list. The local meat and milk I buy is illegal, the regulatory environment has long moved past small producers.

Want to shop at a locally owned hardware store? Hopefully there is one still open around you. If there isn't, how do you signal that you want one? Their owners have retired, nobody is learning how to run one, the banks wouldn't lend to a new one anyway.

Online shopping is cheaper right now because it has to be. If the retail framework went away would it stay that way? It would make sense to raise your margins in an online only world. Transparency and dynamic pricing means you can always go back down if someone undercuts you. Manufacturer quality may dive as well. If you make a mis-stitched or badly sized piece of clothing it simply won't sell at retail. It will always sell online. How many people will return it? Certainly not 100%

Exclusivity is another issue. Once you don't need to support retail, you can supply 100% of your customers from just one or two websites. Manufacturers love this. Don't like the discounting? Raise their wholesale cost. Tie products, lockout competition, force sites to take your whole invetory as it rolls off the line.

Places like Apple are so vertically integrated it'd simply make sense for them to sell direct only. They'd keep the apple stores open - after all they won't be undercutting themselves. Buying a copy of OS X? No problem, just need to verify that you've registered an approved platform with us. Jailbreaker? If they know who you are you go on a lifetime ban list. Friend buys you the new phone? If we track down the udid you're using then he's banned for life too. Bet that'll make you rather unpopular.

Retailers need to rethink old marketing strategies in the age of price transparency. Loss leaders and make up items give you too much incentive to shop around. If I knew everything at a store was reliably 15%-20% over the best online price I wouldn't feel the need to pull out the phone and check prices. It's the fact that there are little +50% or +300% landmines - and once I've found one of those and will order it online instead it seems silly to buy these other lower markup items in store when i could just add them to my online order and save a bit more. Move to shelf dynamic pricing to respond to online changes quickly. If a product does 97% volume online and 3% in your store, fuck it, dump 'em and choose another or private brand it. If 50% of the people who inspect a product in your store go on to buy it online demand promotional fees from the manufacturer and use them to offset higher costs. Integrate better with the community - support local schools and charities instead of national ones, stock local/regional brands, don't fight to open somewhere you're not wanted. Make it so people want to shop at your store to show their gratitude. Tell the local stories all over your store so everyone has a reason to think twice before opting to shave a couple bucks off. Dump the shady sales tactics, flatten commissions, fire anyone caught lying, speak honestly about product shortcomings, never use ignorance to oversell. If people know they can trust your sales staff they'll go to them a lot more, and people getting real help from a salesman don't pull out their phone and order it online at the end.