Brick or Click From rural strip-malls to Manhattan’s avenues, it has been a disastrous past few years for retail. There have been nine retail bankruptcies in 2017—as many as all of 2016. J.C. Penney, RadioShack, Macy’s and Sears have each announced more than 100 store closures. Sports Authority has liquidated and Payless has filed for bankruptcy. Last week, several apparel companies’ stocks hit new multi-year lows, including Lululemon, Urban Outfitters and American Eagle, and Ralph Lauren announced that it is closing its flagship Polo store on Fifth Avenue, one of several brands to abandon that iconic thoroughfare. A deep recession might explain an extinction-level event for large retailers. But U.S. GDP has been growing for eight straight years, gas prices are low, unemployment is under 5 percent, and the last 18 months have been quietly excellent for wage growth, particularly for middle- and lower-income Americans. The U.S economy has not hindered consumerism in the past two years; rather, the method and preferences of consumerism have simply changed. E-commerce has emerged as one of the principal methods of shopping; many are blaming it for the demise of traditional physical retail outlets. This document will analyze the validity of these claims by deconstructing three editorials, each of which posits the notion that the physical retail industry is losing market share to e-commerce.

Prior to analyzing the specifics of the foregoing editorials, it helps to contextualize them in terms of the general sentiment regarding the relationship between e-commerce and physical retail outlets. Proponents of e-commerce believe that with the growth of online shopping, American consumers have discovered the simplicities and comfort of buying goods online. As a result, many are forgoing conventional brick-and-mortar retail outlets. Many believe e-commerce giants such as Amazon have met the consumer’s every wish in terms of what is delivered (such as groceries) and how it is delivered (via free and quick shipping). Consequently, there has been significant opposition to the rise of e-commerce from champions of physical retail outlets. Individuals in support of local retailers have pledged to boycott shopping online to show their commitment to local, physical outlets. The tension between these partisans is readily evinced in the three editorials examined below.

In the first of these editorials, an LA Times opinion piece from June 4, 2017 entitled “Amazon.com is a 21st century deal with the devil,” Amy Koss argues that Amazon is malicious because it has ruined malls, driving booksellers and other retailers out of business. Moreover, she believes it has assumed nearly total control of people’s shopping habits via “Big Data.” Koss claims Amazon sees and knows all and anticipates every consumer’s next move. Koss’s focus on Amazon is extremely important, both to the overall conviction of her article and to the notion that e-commerce is displacing shopping in physical locations. Amazon is emblematic of the perceived negative effect e-commerce is having on brick-and-mortar stores. It sells virtually everything anyone would want, has become wildly profitable, and is able to offer prices that many traditional physical retail locations simply cannot match. Thus, an important, implicit premise to Koss’s editorial is that everything she is detailing about Amazon’s effect on physical retail locations represents the negative effects that Amazon’s business specialty—e-commerce—has on brick-and-mortar locations.

Start off saying she uses a narrative. One of the most distinguishing features about Koss’s editorial is that it functions as a narrative. The author is a character, some of the more salient aspect of her article are a story, one which explictly blames the impending demise of retail stores on ecommerce (and on Aamzon in particular). The personal touch is a little distracting, and there are moments when Koss’s piece functions more like standard journalism in which she refers to events and aspects of the journey of retail stores in the third person. What is missing from this article—which detracts from the overall conviction of the author—is the non-partisan approach of journalism. The author is decidedly one-sided in her recounting of her enouncters with forces she believes are indicative of the demise of retail based on e-commerce. A more neutral approach would have appealed to a broader reader demographic. As the editorial reads, she is obviously appealing to those who are already of her same opinion. She is making no attempts to proselytize those of alternative dispositions regarding this issue.

Koss couches her narrative by visiting the mall and talking to booksellers,...

She provides background information along the way to make her points. The argument is not so much proven as it is reiterated, like a theme, in variations throughout the piece. It is assumed that the reader of the piece will be sympathetic to what Koss is describing. However, Koss’ take is somewhat glib and superficial. It is too easy to describe Amazon as Satan;a thinking person will not subscribe to Koss’s depiction. Furthermore, Koss uses colloquialisms like “we recite the roll of the dead” when describing the long list of retailers that have expired. But her use of terms like “sinister,” “hell,” “lost souls,” “Satan,” and “the damned” just indicates that she is looking to provoke more of a dramatic or visceral effect than a literal, or even logical, one.
The tone of Koss’s piece is gothic and romantic. It begins by describing a mall as a deserted structure like an old ruined castle where “lost souls” wander and where Satan has cast his pall. The evidence that Koss presents is entirely anecdotal—all of it is witnessed first-hand. Her piece is more a personal narrative than it is a research article. She provides no hyperlinks to other web pages or sources of information to support her claims. She simply states her observations and how she perceives them. For example, she reports visiting the mall, encountering all the closed shops, and conversing briefly with a saleswoman who explains that everything must go because her store is closing soon. The metaphor that Koss utilizes is that Amazon is the Devil that has given people everything they want with just the click of a button. The price is that retailers are dying. Booksellers are losing hope. Everyone is shopping online and losing their humanity. The author does not supply much ethos but instead jumps into pathos and uses imagery to appeal to the reader’s emotions. Does it work? On a superficial level, yes—but there is more to understanding the nature of commerce in the Digital Era than what Koss is able to divine.

Still, Koss makes some attempts to utilize logos and, when she does, the article works best. In a succinct series of paragraphs she is able to summarize the basic appeal of Amazon and, by extension, that of e-commerce as a whole. Shoppers can find almost anything they want online. If they do not particularly like what it is they can see, they can readily find another to replace it. Thus, there is a selection which is difficult to match in physical retail stores. The writer also directly addresses the immediacy with which purchases are made and customers are satisfied, in addition to the pricing benefits. This logos reinforces the fact that even detractors of e-commerce readily acknowledge its benefits, despite the fact that they might be upset about them. Nonetheless, the supernatural connotations with which Koss describes the transition from shopping in physical stores to doing so online lessens her credibility, as well as that of the editorial in general. Koss delivers a solid piece of creative writing loosely based on reality, a fact which ultimately hampers her editorial.

Not everyone is completely upset about the recent shopping transformation. As a matter of fact, some assert a more positive approach to the new landscape of the 21st century, where not only consumers but also laborers are confronting change. The New York Times editorial, “As Retail Goes, So Goes the Nation” by Allan Thompson on April 21, 2017, addresses this change within the context of lost retail positions. Thompson directs his ire in a different direction, however. Instead of critiquing e-commerce companies, he critiques public policy and actually advocates for change, urging members of the U.S. government to act—namely, current President Donald Trump. Thus, his article is much more neutral than Koss’s is, which provides a greater advantage to the non-partisan reader simply trying to research the facts about e-commerce and traditional retail shopping. He acknowledges the transition of the latter to the former, and presents a number of viable options to make it much more beneficial to society as a whole.

The article begins by illustrating the life of the average worker, how jobs are being lost and the impact that e-commerce has had on retail. Thompson acknowledges that while technology is not bad in and of itself, the resulting job landscape is changing drastically with unemployment being a particularly nasty ramification. Suggested solutions or the “strong safety net” for displaced workers include continuous health care coverage and unemployment benefits. Thompson’s editorial is not presented as a rant but rather as a plea—a plea for…