Fewer, bigger players dominate retail landscape
T.J. Maxx in lower Manhattan is buzzing during lunch hour. Cally Connelly is on her break, combing through racks of clothes.
“I guess I’m a shopaholic, so I’m at T.J. Maxx just looking around, not for anything in particular,” she says, hesitantly calling herself a Maxxinista, which is how the store refers to its dedicated customers. “I’m not here, like, every day, but I do really like it here.”
Connelly comes to the store a couple of times a month, and it’s one of the few places she still shops in person. On a wall nearby, a sign reads: “New styles arrive weekly. Shouldn’t you?”
“There’s just always something special and new,” she says. “I feel like they always have new stuff here.”
T.J. Maxx is one of those wacky places where you can buy a designer handbag, pasta sauce or a set of silver and gold water bottles in the shape of a croissant. The good deals and constant rotation of new stuff are reasons that discount retailers are doing well right now. T.J. Maxx’s sales have grown and its stock price has about doubled over the last half decade.
But it is an outlier in what’s otherwise been a tough time for retailers. Between January and November of 2024, U.S. retailers closed 7,300 locations and about 50 companies filed for bankruptcy — double the number in 2023, according to Coresight Research. That’s all despite the fact that consumer spending has held pretty strong, with this past holiday sales season being the biggest yet.
The shifts happening in the industry have brought back a familiar term: “retail apocalypse.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘apocalypse,’ but I would say a ‘readjustment,”‘ said Nicole DeHoratius, a professor of practice at Columbia Business School.
Readjustment, of course, is a part of the natural churn of business. But the big challenge for retailers is they increasingly have to be everywhere: online, in person and everything in between, with offerings like curbside pickup and easy returns. It’s hard to do all of that well.
“I was trying to think of the last time I was delighted in a retail shopping experience,” DeHoratius said. “And I have to say it’s been quite a while.”
You’re probably familiar with these scenes. You go to a store and the counter is cluttered with returned clothes. Or you go online to see if the pizza stone you’ve been eyeing is in stock at your nearest store, only to arrive and find an empty shelf.
The integration of online and in-person shopping saps retailers’ ability to do any one thing well. “I think it’s totally possible to do all things,” DeHoratius said. “But the question is: Is it going to be the companies that just have funding?”
It’s why just a few companies have become people’s go-to for everything from food to footwear.
“To the victor go the spoils, right?” said Aaron Cheris, who leads the e-commerce division at Bain & Co., a large management-consulting company. “Like, if you sort of looked at retail over the last decade, more than half of the growth in U.S. retail has come from Walmart, Amazon and Costco.”
Increasingly in retail, it takes money to make money. And to compete, retailers have to be the best.
“The problem is that if you’re not what I would call the ‘-est’ on something,” said Cheris, referring to the cheapest, fastest or highest quality, “then it’s really hard to win.”
If a smaller company hopes to win, it has to focus. Which brings us back to T.J. Maxx, one of the few retailers that gets away with not doing it all, online and in person, and instead leans into offering products that are affordable and special.
“I found a light green — I would call it pistachio — House of Harlow blazer,” says Connelly, bragging about the best deal she’s ever snagged at the store. “And originally I think it’s, like, $180. I got it for $50. Favorite thing I’ve ever owned for sure. Love it.”
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