Fall 2019 - Inside Outdoor Magazine

Inside Outdoor | FALL 2019 36 T here’s no mistaking it: traditional, physical retailers have been under siege, and that assault on their sales is not likely to change or slow down any time soon. No matter how one looks at things, brick-and-mortar’s por- tion of the pie is shrinking and will continue to do so. On the other hand, physical stores still are doing quite well, thank you very much, despite the onslaught. Con- sumers, after all, have overwhelmingly embraced buying through Amazon and are more than comfortable transacting directly with vendor brands. They have grown fully familiar with the endless aisles of the interweb and understand the power of price transparency. Yet physical stores somehow continue to command the overwhelming majority of U.S. retail spending – anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of dollars spent as recently as last year. Smaller specialty retailers are doing particularly well, with 82 percent of specialty re- tailers recently surveyed by Envoy B2B experiencing busi- ness growth within the last year. Much the same has been reported by members of the Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, with year-over-year growth led by members operating a single store front, said the buying group. The Role of the Store Physical retail in the 2020s