Scaling down from overexpansion should prove fruitful for investors once the market turns, West thinks.

FORBES: Specialty Retailers

McDonald's, by contrast, having just recovered from its own overexpansion, is venturing into a whole new market.

ECONOMIST: Starbucks v McDonald's

The market had gotten over the tech bubble bursting and was being fueled by an overexpansion of another sort, in the housing market.

NPR: So The Dow Hit A Record; Now Where Do We Go?

The company has been closing stores in the United States, rationalizing the number of outlets after a period of overexpansion, while increasing its global presence.

FORBES: Connect

The company's misfortune, in addition to overexpansion, is that recent economic turmoil came right on the heels of cheaper alternatives that were already chipping away at market share.

FORBES: Specialty Retailers

Yet a strategy of closing outlets opened during a period of overexpansion, introducing healthier options and improving customer service got McDonald's out of a very similar crisis a few years back.

ECONOMIST: Second-act chief executives

Another major criticism of High Street retailers is overexpansion.

BBC: Online shops take stock and move into the High Street

Analysts agree that Starbucks' main problem is overexpansion as it was at McDonald's in 2001, when the chain crossed the 30, 000-store mark and struggled with a dearth of innovation, market saturation and poor control over restaurants.

ECONOMIST: Starbucks v McDonald's

To REIT analysts this is an anomalous circumstance unlikely to be repeated soon in an industry not normally given to overexpansion: Many warehouses in the early part of the decade were built to house tech gear and retail inventory.

FORBES: A Warehouse of Value