Mississauga Slim
Active Member
Recently, you may have noticed, HMV cut the retail floorspace of its Yonge St store in half. HMV has announced that it is shrinking its retail presence in general in all its markets. Other record stores of course, have disappeared entirely. It seems clear that the record store is an endangered retail species as the physical product becomes obsolete.
Now, a similar thing appears to be happening to bookstores with the advent of electronic readers like the kindle. Already, Borders in the US has gone out of business. Retail chains in Canada may soon be feeling the strain.
Another area where physical product is becoming obsolete is video with the advent of streaming services such as Netflix. This has led to the Bankruptcy and disappearance of Blockbuster stores, and likely many other video stores as well.
As record stores, bookstores, and video stores disappear, they will leave behind a considerable amount of vacant retail space. The variety of retail on the streets will also diminish somewhat as a result of this.
What do you think will replace these stores? What do you think the overall effect might be? Significant, or relatively trivial? Can you foresee other kinds of retail stores that may potentially be on the "endangered list?" Can you imagine new uses for retail space that we may not have seen yet?
I am interested to know what people think.
Now, a similar thing appears to be happening to bookstores with the advent of electronic readers like the kindle. Already, Borders in the US has gone out of business. Retail chains in Canada may soon be feeling the strain.
Another area where physical product is becoming obsolete is video with the advent of streaming services such as Netflix. This has led to the Bankruptcy and disappearance of Blockbuster stores, and likely many other video stores as well.
As record stores, bookstores, and video stores disappear, they will leave behind a considerable amount of vacant retail space. The variety of retail on the streets will also diminish somewhat as a result of this.
What do you think will replace these stores? What do you think the overall effect might be? Significant, or relatively trivial? Can you foresee other kinds of retail stores that may potentially be on the "endangered list?" Can you imagine new uses for retail space that we may not have seen yet?
I am interested to know what people think.