As malls go, so does Macy’s.

But why is Macy’s suffering so much?

Could it be that, to survive, it has to bolster its online presence?

Our penchant for button-pushing our purchases at online stores, instead of visiting retail brick-and-mortar locations, simply makes the rich get richer.

The founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has a whopping net worth of $181 billion, according to the latest numbers from Forbes. It’s hard to wrap your head around exactly how much that is.

Bezos rakes in the money because Amazon accounts for a third of all e-commerce.

The pandemic has roasted business at the malls, as well as Macy’s department stores, which has locations near here in Allegheny County and Pittsburgh.

Macy’s posted a fourth-quarter profit drop of 52%. Sales slid nearly 19%.

While the Eagle recently reported that Macy’s is looking ahead to a year of rebuilding from the pandemic, it is clear: top-tier stores may be the only viable brick-and-mortar options left for any retailers.

Online spending represented 21.3% of total retail sales for the year, according to Digital Commerce 360 (a media and research organization) estimates. Amazon accounted for nearly a third of all e-commerce in the United States.

The organization said consumers spent $861.12 billion online with U.S. merchants in 2020, up an incredible 44% year over year. That’s the highest annual U.S. e-commerce growth in at least two decades, noted Digital Commerce 360. It’s also nearly triple the 15.1% jump in 2019.

In a recent post by Bloomberg, U.S. mall values plunged an average 60% after appraisals in 2020, a sign of more pain to come for retail properties even as the economy emerges from pandemic-enforced lockdowns.

Bloomberg said about $4 billion in value was erased from 118 retail-anchored properties with commercial mortgage-backed securities debt after reappraisals triggered by payment delinquencies, defaults or foreclosures.

Bloomberg noted the biggest real estate managers, such as Simon Property Group Inc. (owners of the Grove City Premium Outlets and others in Pittsburgh), Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (Station Square in Pittsburgh) and Starwood Capital Group (none listed in Pennsylvania), have started to triage properties, walking away from money-losers while reinvesting in viable locations.

Only about half of the 1,100 U.S. indoor malls have a good chance of survival, according to Floris van Dijkum, a real estate analyst with Compass Point Research & Trading. The strong will get stronger while the weakest face abandonment, he said.

What is causing this pain? Perhaps it’s a confluence of COVID-19 quarantines and the consumer’s growing desire to purchase with a push of a button.

How do you have a “night on the town” shopping at Amazon? Where shopping used to be a social event, now it is simply another icon to click. That would be frightening if it wasn’t so sad.

— AA