Small Boxes

Small Boxes Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that big-box retailers are dealing with shrinking real estate requirements as customers increasingly shift to online purchasing. The most telling example is that Staples, who pioneered the “superstore,” is now the second largest online retailer behind Amazon, and that translates to not so super stores. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Home Depot are scrambling to fill unused space by expanding their offerings or subletting vacant square footage and carving off parking lots. This is bad news for the retail sector. Not only are many markets saturated with retail malls and big boxes, now we have the shrinking-factor that will further dampen real estate growth. This will have a ripple effect on the organizational front. With less growth, there will be fewer jobs and transaction volume will also diminish, aggravating the recovery on the brokerage side of the business. So what can we do about this? I’d buy FedEx stock and hire a chief digital officer. That’s where the growth will be.