The idea of spending a leisurely few hours of the weekend at the mall — browsing aisles for a new pair of jeans and shoes and hitting the food court — is going out of style, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today. The latest in a growing list of retail casualties, mall staple and teen apparel company rue21 Inc. filed for chapter 11 reorganization last week, joining the ranks of Payless, American Apparel, Aeropostale, hhgregg, and The Limited. This year, retail bankruptcies have set a record pace. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the number of bankruptcies in early 2017 had already come close to the total in 2016. Between January and April, 14 retailers have filed, compared to 18 in all of last year. (The report was released before rue21 filed on May 15.) The primary factors putting the squeeze on retailers are known: More shopping is shifting online, and consumer tastes are changing, with shoppers opting for gadgets or experiences over the trendiest jacket. The result is that there are too many stores and too little customer traffic to keep them going. Companies are trying to figure out the best way for them to adapt to a changing retail environment. Many are shrinking their store footprint, cutting costs and shifting their focus to e-commerce, but they are approaching those goals from different angles. Noting that each struggling company has its own story, “It is widely agreed that the U.S. is over-stored and that the solution for flat or declining in-store sales resides to a significant degree online, where the most sales growth is now taking place,” according to a recent report from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
