What is killing retail? Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economics professor, shares three factors other than the Internet affecting retail including: big-box discount stores, a shrinking middle class, and shoppers preferring ‘services’ over tangible things.
I found this except interesting:
“In 1920, Americans spent more than half their income on food (38 percent) and clothing (17 percent) and almost all of that was through traditional retail stores. Today, food eaten outside the home and in it accounts for 10 percent of spending and clothing just 2.4 percent.”