GlobeSt.com: Does that mean that shopping centers will continue to be relevant?

Brower Fancher: This not the end of shopping centers. Ecommerce shows a change in consumer buying behavior in which buyers want one of their choices to be the ability to shop online. This isn't limited to any one generation; it's simply a new option in the retail world. Online buying is motivated by convenience, as well as by the perception or reality of a lower cost of online goods.

GlobeSt.com: In addition to convenience, there is an idea that people shop online for lower prices. Will pricing continue to drive consumers away from brick and mortar?

Brower Fancher: As far as lower price goes, in a March 2016 study by MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Alberto Cavallo, within the U.S. the price was exactly the same in store and online for 69% of the 24,000 items they studied. So, the price savings is often simply a perception. As an example, when our firm was working on the industry's earliest big-box centers, which were born during a recession, the pundits were saying that people would never buy full-price retail again. Decades later in 2015, Nordstrom hit a new record of $14.1 billion in sales. So clearly someone is buying at full-price stores. And approximately 80 percent of Nordstrom sales in 2015 were in physical stores. While online sales in specific categories will continue to increase as a percentage of all sales, it does not follow that people will actually stop going to retail centers. They will simply change why they are going to the shopping center. Convenience, however, can certainly be real in some instances, and the retail industry as a whole does not seem to be accepting that fact as quickly or completely as it should.

GlobeSt.com: What are some retailers doing to attract customers into the store?

Brower Fancher: Savvy brick and mortar apparel retailers are offering to send out of stock items to your home with no shipping cost so that the customer doesn't need to come back twice, allowing the retailer to lock in the sale. It also beats the cost of ordering online and paying for shipping, making the consumer feel that the trip to the store was financially rewarding.

LOS ANGELES—Ecommerce isn't replacing brick-and-mortar. Instead, we should look at the industry—which has fueled massive growth in the industrial sector—as simply another option for consumers to buy goods. While online sales are only growing, consumers are still buying in store as well, and that isn't likely to change. To take a hard look at the numbers, we sat down with Judy Brower Fancher, CEO of Brower Miller & Cole. Here, she breaks down online and in-store spending and why shopping centers aren't going away.

GlobeSt.com: How has ecommerce really impacted retail spending?

Brower Fancher: I'll start with a typical statistic that's frightening the industry, yet needs to be understood. JLL's most recent research puts annual e-commerce sales at nearly $2 trillion globally in 2016. Their projection that it will grow to $4 trillion by 2020 makes it sound like physical retail will soon be gone. In reality, however, those numbers represent two things. First, according to JLL research, 9% of retail spending was done online in 2016. That means 91% of retail spending was through in-store purchasing. The 2020 projection is that it will grow to 15%, meaning that 85% of retail spending will still be done in-store.

GlobeSt.com: Does that mean that shopping centers will continue to be relevant?

Brower Fancher: This not the end of shopping centers. Ecommerce shows a change in consumer buying behavior in which buyers want one of their choices to be the ability to shop online. This isn't limited to any one generation; it's simply a new option in the retail world. Online buying is motivated by convenience, as well as by the perception or reality of a lower cost of online goods.

GlobeSt.com: In addition to convenience, there is an idea that people shop online for lower prices. Will pricing continue to drive consumers away from brick and mortar?

Brower Fancher: As far as lower price goes, in a March 2016 study by MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Alberto Cavallo, within the U.S. the price was exactly the same in store and online for 69% of the 24,000 items they studied. So, the price savings is often simply a perception. As an example, when our firm was working on the industry's earliest big-box centers, which were born during a recession, the pundits were saying that people would never buy full-price retail again. Decades later in 2015, Nordstrom hit a new record of $14.1 billion in sales. So clearly someone is buying at full-price stores. And approximately 80 percent of Nordstrom sales in 2015 were in physical stores. While online sales in specific categories will continue to increase as a percentage of all sales, it does not follow that people will actually stop going to retail centers. They will simply change why they are going to the shopping center. Convenience, however, can certainly be real in some instances, and the retail industry as a whole does not seem to be accepting that fact as quickly or completely as it should.

GlobeSt.com: What are some retailers doing to attract customers into the store?

Brower Fancher: Savvy brick and mortar apparel retailers are offering to send out of stock items to your home with no shipping cost so that the customer doesn't need to come back twice, allowing the retailer to lock in the sale. It also beats the cost of ordering online and paying for shipping, making the consumer feel that the trip to the store was financially rewarding.