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Macy's and Sears, two of the America's most iconic department stores, recently announced massive cutbacks due to slow holiday sales that will lead to the shutdown of hundreds of locations and cutting thousands of jobs. According to a report by CNN, Macy's is shutting down 68 stores and cutting more than 10,000 jobs and Sears is shuttering 150 of its stores, including 108 Kmarts, said another report by ABC.
According to expert, this is nothing unusual. is inevitable for brick and mortar stores. Increasing number of people are now buying things online and people are gradually moving away from physical shopping. Ashley Lutz, deputy editor of the Business Insider said to ABC, "the years of the fancy department store is over. ... This is really just the beginning."
In Bangladesh, however, the scenario still is quite different. Digital shopping is growing rapidly but is not as big in size as brick-and-mortar businesses. However, it is safe to predict that things are going to be different within the next couple of years.
Smartphone penetration is growing rapidly in the country. Today more that 65 million people use internet and the number is bound to grow further in the coming years as the price of internet and smartphone go further down.
