In recent years, numerous alarm bells have sounded and obituaries have been written in the Media and elsewhere about the death of brick and mortar Retail, a decline heralded by the explosion of online sales via monolithic giants such as Amazon. But the reality is far different from these apocalyptic predictions – in fact, as Gary Lee noted last year, despite the rapid increase in online sales, 90% of retail still occurs in brick and mortar stores. And contrary to the media doom and gloom, more new locations opened than closed in 2017, and projections hold the same is happening this year.