Another topic, actually what is happening to brick and mortar stores in larger cities happend to general stores 100 years ago in rural areas. Sears and Wards had big catalogs where you could order anything up to a pre-cut house. They used railway express for delivery, so you might have had to go to the local depot to pick up stuff. This left the local general store to deal with things Sears/Wards did not sell. Sears used to have a large mail order center in Chicago with multiple railroad sidings. Interestingly as Sears grew it decided it needed to take on the big cities and built stores, and the Catalog side faded away. (1993 for the big book). Then starting in the late 60s Sears began to fade away as it was a set of geographic feofdomes. I recall moving from Ca to Tx in 1976 and having to get a new sears card because the two divisions did not like one another.
Of course delivery today is better than 100 years ago when west of the mississippi meant an extra week of shipping time.
Good summation...
After a full career in retailing with Sears and Montgomery Ward, beginning in 1958, I watched the change from free standing stores, to malls, and then the movement into smaller communities with catalog stores, (between the two retail giants, some 4,500 units) to service the non-urban market.
So, the rise and fall of giants mirrors what has and is happening in the retail trade. In our 50,000 regiopolis, the single larger mall is anchored by
J C Penney and Sears, with Penneys' to close shortly, and Sears, to likely be close behind. Some 30+ stores have already closed, with the writing on the wall for more closures (2 in the past month).
With a strong effort by the mall owners, there have been many attempts to develop local entrepreneur based businesses... most of which haven't worked out. Traffic has dropped, so obviously sales have not been enough to support the basic costs of operation.
Based on some of the comments about lack of personal service being a cause of customer discontent, I'd point out that in order to stay in business retailers have very few ways of cutting costs except for payroll. A self defeating conundrum.
For the non-major metro malls, my guess is that the timeline for closing will be based on the expiration of longer term leases... a bet that the overhaul of Sears by Eddie Lampert lost, and a major cause of the KMart/Sears plan failure.
The hope for saving the malls seems to lie in trying to convert from retail only, to a combination of public oriented centers (health, entertainment, education etc.) and business offices of all types. IMHO, a gain of perhaps 10 years in operation.
For those who are interested in the retail industry in the US, I'd highly recommend this article. Some numbers that might surprise you.
https://www.thebalance.com/us-retail-industry-overview-2892699