Is Macy’s Moving Online for Good?

Due to the increase in online shopping some of the biggest stores in the world, such as Macy’s, are even struggling to keep all of their physical stores open, and many have had to close several branches or let some staff go.

The battle between online and main street shopping has been going on for a while now, and by the looks of some main streets around the world, online shopping may be winning. Some of the biggest stores in the world, such as Macy’s, are even struggling to keep all of their physical stores open, and many have had to close several branches or let some staff go.

Let’s take a look at the well-known American brand Macy’s. Its first physical store was founded back in 1858, and currently has 669 stores around the world. Although the stores are very popular, the same could be said about its online store which went live in 1996. Redbrain.com reports that, since that time, Macy’s has made $5.3 billion in online revenue!

Because of the online store, sales in the department stores are declining faster than experts anticipated. Back in 2017, the brand went through a restructuring in order to shift more of its resources into its online effort, closing 68 of its stores in the process.

This restructuring also meant the loss of 10,000 employees who had to go elsewhere to find jobs. However, with many other large brands doing a similar thing, finding another store to get a job in was no easy feat.

Macy’s, like other brands, is investing a lot of its capital into mobile device commerce and in-store pick up options for online orders. This is the direction that the market seems to be heading in, therefore, Macy’s is trying to stay ahead of the game and build up a solid ecommerce store for both desktop and mobile shoppers.

It has even gone as far as to build a shopping app for iPhone and Android users, so that consumers can shop while they are out and about.

Despite its efforts, the company is struggling to build its digital operations strong enough to mitigate the loss of footfalls in main street stores.

This rise in e-commerce and online shopping over the years is largely thanks to global giants such as Amazon and Alibaba, and other brands have to adopt the same trend in order to keep up. Today, nearly all of the growth in the retail space is taking place online in the digital space, and we haven’t seen the end of it yet. Click on the infographic below for a more in-depth look at this trend.