I wonder if heating up competition and shakeups in the retail sector means that margins have gotten so thin that the only way to survive going forward is through massively-scaled automation and innovative presentation and delivery that limits real-estate footprints as much as possible. Another factor I've been unsuccessfully trying to nail down is if disposable income and velocity of money has declined for a broad enough swath of the population that we're seeing a gradual collapse towards an increasing percentage of incomes going towards essentials over time.

All this excitement in online retailing reminds me of yield chasing investors; the excitement appears as growth- and margin-chasing, and in the meantime the "plodding" sectors (and their associated populations) are overlooked. For example, I don't see a shift to online with dollar stores.