Patriotic Duty: Buy Online to Flatten the Curve? ...But at What Cost?
Alec MacGillis shares in the Times how online shopping and Amazon in particular are wrecking havoc on retail.
Highlights:
Nationwide, 9,800 stores shuttered in 2019, among them 220 Sears stores.
Analysts predict that brick-and-mortar store closures could reach 25,000 by year’s end.
J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew filed for bankruptcy, Macy’s furloughed nearly all of its 125,000 workers for months, and countless independent businesses have closed for good.
Americans buying from Amazon now can view online shopping as patriotic duty to flatten the curve.
Amazon has capitalized on advantages such as skirting sales taxes in many states and getting bulk discounts from the Postal Service.
In the third quarter of this year, Amazon’s profits surpassed $6 billion.
To handle this surge and prepare for holiday season demand, the company hired 250,000 people between July and September, pushing its global work force past one million.
Amazon recently announced plans to build office space for 25,000 salaried employees in Bellevue, a high-end Seattle suburb. In Arlington, Va., work proceeds on a new campus that will also welcome 25,000. In New York, the company paid $1 billion to gather 2,000 professional employees in the former Lord & Taylor flagship store on Fifth Avenue.