Ding

I’m sure you’ve heard that malls are getting killed. Pretty soon there will be no malls. Except for those with a Planet Fitness!
There has been lots of ink (and electrons) spilled over the death of retail.
Everyone knows it is only a matter of time before Amazon puts every department store, every mall, every brick-and-mortar retailer out of business. Amazon gets an infinity market cap and everyone else gets zero. Sound familiar?
That’s the accepted wisdom.
Is Amazon a great business? Yes.
Is a department store a bad business? Probably.
Does Amazon get 100% market share, with department stores getting zero? Probably not.
Amazon has over 80 million Prime subscribers in the US. It’s not quite saturated, but it’s getting close.
I admit to being a Prime member, a late adopter.
It is pretty cool. Stuff shows up on my doorstep in two days, for free. The huge poker chip set I just ordered probably weighs about 40 pounds – free shipping! And I get all the Prime movies and TV shows.

This post was published at Mauldin Economics on JULY 13, 2017.