Pandemic Unleashes New Big-Box Era
Covid-19 upended consumer behavior, raising the stakes for Walmart, Target and others as spending shifts away from them this year.
During Covid, retailers realized the need to shift more of their stores to e-commerce.
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A year of Covid-19 has dramatically accelerated the transformation of big-box stores into e-commerce warehouses, causing ripple effects for hourly workers and a struggling real estate sector.
Shopping center mainstays Walmart Inc., Best Buy Co. and others are becoming fulfillment centers where workers assemble local deliveries and socially distanced consumers wait in parking spaces for their trunks to be filled. Space once devoted to t-shirts and TVs will now be used to pick and pack online orders or generate revenue by displaying ads for big brands like Samsung.