Up side of store closings.

I found this article on CNN.com about the expected closing of a lot of big retail stores due to the economy.

Two things struck me.

First that as these big stores close they open the way for the small retailers to fill the gap. Second their suggestion that we will by less may also mean that we will spread our buying over time. Instead of a big slug of back to school buying in August, the same money may be spread out over the school year. Back in the day, my parents used to buy a years worth of shirts and slacks for me to wear to school, enough notebooks and pens and pencils, etc. for the whole year.

I suspect that instead of retailers facing those boom-bust cycles, the buying will now be spread more evenly throughout the school year. I also suspect that a lot more people will buy on line, not for any cost savings (my experience is that the shipping costs eat up most of the perceived savings) but because they can get the shirt in blue with stripes that the local store isn’t carrying due to “down sizing”.