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Comment by cpwright | Hacker News Reader

Its going to entirely depend on the segment, Wal-Mart gets 55% of revenue from groceries apparently (I took some time to look at what fraction of groceries would be of overall retail sales, but couldn't find it). So I think a reasonable assumption is that a large chunk of retail sales are groceries. Another large chunk is going to be automobiles, which in some metrics get excluded; which are another large part of retail sales.

If you keep chopping away big parts that aren't conducive to e-commerce; the 6.40% is going to be a pretty big percentage. Small specialty stores are probably hit especially hard, to the point of being crushed; going out of business and making the e-commerce players a larger percentage of the market and thus more efficient, driving even more e-commerce in a positive feedback loop.

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If you want to see just how irrelevant E-Commerce is, just look at your neighborhood Apple Store. Their products are the sort that could easily be purchased online -- commodity technology products aimed at the supposedly tech savvy.

The only visible effect of e-commerce has been the thinning of margins. The ability to check prices online leveled the playing field between retailers and customers. This has brought us closer to a real market -- one where perfect information is available to all parties.

Your analysis is flawed: Apple stores aren't selling Apple products to tech savvy individuals.

They're selling Apple products to mall goers, which are a known diminishing supply, and is selling access to same-day accessories and acting as a front point for talking to Apple techs and dealing with warranty claims.

In that sense, Apple stores are actually in the business of selling services, rather than products.

E-commerce has more or less killed my local bookstores, travel agents, music (CD) stores, music instrument stores, video rental, bank branches, tobacconist (selling magazines and newspapers) and post office. Not sure I would call that irrelevant.

And that's...good. Shops are only good to have in your town insofar as they let you buy stuff more easily and cheaply. As soon as they no longer served that purpose, the labor and real estate was being wasted. Now that those businesses have shut down, the real estate is available for more productive uses and the workers are free to do something that is more useful to society. Your locality is that much better off for it, especially the poorest people, since they can obtain goods and services more cheaply.

I disagree. My locality is not better off. The centre of my town now nearly consist of fashion and coffee shops. And people working there are not more useful to society. They are selling nothing I need. I'd like to actually be able to purchase things that I use locally. The local society looses skills and functions. No service on broken parts, no local knowledge, well, except for fashion knowledge and his to package a latte.

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