Now each year growth in on-line retail continues, while demand at traditional stores wanes.
Retailers don't necessarily lose business from a relative dearth of online sales, since many consumers are simply embracing the alternative choice of shopping at traditional stores.
The project, known as IntoOutdoors, combines traditional stores with outdoor attractions such as two fishing lakes, a cycle track for casual riders and a skateboard park.
It will matter when and if critical mass is reached, and online-only merchants, who don't have to underwrite the expense of having traditional stores on city streets, reach dominance.
The success of retailers such as the dedicated online fashion site Asos hints at how rapid the migration of sales from traditional stores to the internet is, especially among the 18-34 age group.
For a business, the cost of stocking excess inventory averages 20% to 25% of the value of the goods, according to Lehigh University professor Lawrence Snyder, who co-authored a study on how traditional stores can benefit from integrating their inventory management with their online offerings.
For its traditional coffee stores, Starbucks plans to boost sales by expanding its food menu.
FORBES: Starbucks' Aggressive Expansion And Shifting Business Mix Are Keys To Earnings
If it works he will be able to create a huge nationwide chain of boutiques, separate from the traditional department stores.
The company, founded in 1996, specializes in regional favorites that traditional grocery stores might not sell enough of to justify shelf room.
The blurring of boundaries is also true at traditional sundry stores, which want to service folks who run offices out of their homes.
"Non-traditional channels have become more important, especially as traffic in supermarkerts and traditional convenience stores have declined, " says Kenneth Harris, a packaged-goods consultant with Cannondale Associates in Evanston, Ill.
The business model differs from that of traditional video rental stores that typically let customers pick movies from an available physical library of titles.
In the U.S., not all of the new set ups will be traditional Starbucks coffee stores, and we expect to see a fair number of Teavana and Evolution juice bars as part of the new additions.
FORBES: Starbucks' Aggressive Expansion And Shifting Business Mix Are Keys To Earnings
Their competition has also grown, with department stores and costume shops selling traditional clothes.
Another trend showing traditional retail fighting back is redesigning physical stores and brands around the customer experience.
Instead of the traditional 9am or 10am opening hour, stores would open at 8am, then 6am, then midnight.
But this obliges publishers to essentially run two businesses at once: a traditional publisher that sells bound books to stores and an electronic business that sells e-books online.
Pop-up stores enable cost efficiency advantages over traditional retailers, while at the same time accessing physical retailing demand.
FORBES: Pre-Tail, E-Tail, to Retail: The New Commerce Pipeline
But CSN Stores plans to soon launch more traditional brand advertising for Wayfair.
FORBES: Targeting A $500 Million Year, CSN Stores Builds Out Home Goods Vertical
It has lots of implications, mainly in retail and stockists: online stores are less picky, but traditional retail is very picky.
Another edge: Apple can sell many of its tablets directly, through hundreds of Apple stores, letting it skip the traditional retail discounts of 12.5 to 15%, Wolf argues.
Then there are more existential threats, like a digital generation that favors 99-cent iPad apps over traditional toys, a shrinking number of toy stores and the looming concern that DIY 3-D printing will render premade plastic toys obsolete.
FORBES: Life After Barbie: Why Mattel Isn't Scared Of iPads And Video Games
Traditional retailers, like Japan's stuffy department stores, are having an awful time.
Ikea's trademark blue-and-yellow stores typically feature a restaurant that serves traditional Swedish food, including meatballs served with boiled or mashed potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jam.
First, traditional retailers may need to think about closing more stores in 2012 as the least-trafficked outlets fail to generate enough sales to cover fixed overhead costs.
The nation's No. 3 traditional supermarket operator said Thursday that the sale of 877 stores to an investor group led by Cerberus Capital Management will also include Acme, Shaw's and Star Market.
Horsemeat is considered a traditional delicacy in Russia and is available in many restaurants and stores.
Coach has shifted toward more factory stores, which sell goods at lower prices than traditional locations, and introduced coupons to match an increased in promotion among retailers.
FORBES: Coach Bags Double-Digit Overseas Growth As Quarterly Figures Shine
"We have lots of brands - our stores are quality stores, they're usually bigger than the traditional pound shops and the shopping environment and ranges are better, " he said.
The grocery business has become a highly competitive one with low margins compressed even further due to competition from Wal-Mart and other large format stores that siphon price-conscious shoppers away from traditional grocers.
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