The growth of the ecommerce/online channel was the No. 1 retail issue reported by survey respondents, with more than 20% of those responding mentioning it when asked about key trends affecting retailing. Among the respondents who labeled the growth of ecommerce an important trend for the year, it was not viewed as exclusively positive: about a quarter also mentioned it in concert with comments about their bricks-and-mortar business shrinking.
“Ecommerce is changing it for everybody,” one licensing agent noted, pointing to the expanding number of distribution points for brands, stretching from the ubiquitous (and for vendors, demanding) Amazon, Walmart.com and Target.com, to dedicated Web stores for individual properties.
See the complete run-down on retail sales by distribution here, complete with a breakdown by each channel.