Reporting on the retail trade: formats from concept shop to outlet mall, how markups and sale calendars are set, resale and secondhand growth, the economics of returns, and what physical stores now do that screens cannot. Written for shoppers who want to understand the machinery behind a price tag.
How retail operates.
At Europe's big outlet villages the discount sign is real, but up to a third of the stock was made for the outlet — the trick is telling manufactured-for-discount from genuine end-of-season.
US department store sales have fallen by roughly half since 2000 while e-commerce grew tenfold — what killed the middle, and where the survivors are hiding.