In retail, some brands that could no longer cut it with brick-and-mortar stores are getting a second wind in the digital world, according to a commentary in the Philadelphia Enquirer. The notion of the “zombie retailer” really came into vogue after the bankruptcy of Circuit City in 2008, Brown said. Though the retailer was liquidated, its intellectual property was bought in 2016 and the brand reemerged as an online consumer electronics retailer. Retail analyst Simeon Siegel, executive director at Nomura/Instinet Equity Research, said pure e-tailers’ physical stores validate the brick-and-mortar strategy. But “it is clear that certain companies may simply not be able to sustain them. And if a company has no stores, it will have shed itself of painful fixed expense (i.e., rent).”
