The first quarter of 2016 has been a “bloodbath” for a wide range of major retailers, with poor sales leading to plunging stock prices. The long list of struggling stores includes J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Gap, Target, Kohl’s, Dillards, and Nordstrom, a few of which recently reported their poorest comparable sales results since the Great Recession.
The consensus holds that Amazon, the all-powerful online sales machine that is aggressively pushing into the apparel market, bears most of the blame for why so many shoppers are avoiding the usual suspects at the mall.
