[Retail Crisis] (1,2,3) -Lesson 21 /Business Communication in Action-
Ueda Shota: I got a firsthand look at the changing industrial landscape in America last week thanks to a friend of mine who lives in New Jersey.
Steve Lyons: Oh, where did he take you?
Ueda: He gave me a private tour of his company's fulfillment center in central New Jersey. He works at an e-commerce company. It's a huge place. More than 4,000 people and many, many robots work there. They store, select, pack and ship the company's inventory - sometimes for same-day delivery.
Lidia Grace: That's one reason for the decline of the traditional shopping mall in the suburbs. We've become used to the instant gratification of having products delivered quickly.
Chuck Salmans: Times are changing, all right. All over the country you can see "zombie malls."
Ueda: There was one not far from the fulfillment center, actually. We stopped by to have a look. The lights were on and the escalators were running, but the mall was half-empty. The place felt like a ghost town.
Lyons: Yes, the internet is sounding the death knell for shopping malls. Consumers shop for everything and anything online.
Grace: It's ironic in a way, isn't it?
Grace: The big attraction of shopping malls was their convenience. Now they've been overtaken in taht regard by online shopping. Nothing's easier than sitting at home and placing an order on your laptop, smartphone or tablet computer.
Salmans: I recently read that here in the U.S. the number of malls increased more than twice as fast as the population between 1970 and 2015. Another surprising fact is that the United States has 40 percent more shopping space than Canada on a per capita basis and five times more than Britain. Experts say a quarter of the country's 1,200 malls could close by 2022.
Lyons: Yup, the retail industry overdid it and built too much space.
Ueda: My friend repeatedly stressed how the buying experience in America keeps changing. In the past 10 years we've seen how cheaper internet access and the smartphone revolution caused many traditional retailers to migrate onto the web. Interestingly enough, he said we're now seeing some of those same e-tailers moving back to the brick-and mortar world.
Grace: Yes, one leading e-commerce company has gone ahead and opened some real, old-fashioned bookstores. The idea is to appeal to people who like to touch and feel - and even smell - books before they buy them.
Salmans: That's great.
★I got a firsthand look at the changing industrial landscape in America last week thanks to a friend of mine who lives in New Jersey.
ニュージャージー州に住んでいる友人のおかげで、先週、アメリカの変わりつつある産業界の状況を直接見てきました。
★Interestingly enough, he said we're now seeing some of those same e-tailers moving back to the brick-and-mortar world.
興味深いことに、友人は、「今度は、それらの同じネット通販会社の一部が、従来型の世界に戻っている」と言っていました。
★Or how nationwide discount chains undercut mom-and-pop stores.
あるいは、全国チェーンのディスカウントショップが、零細店舗より安く売っている状況に、目を向けてください。
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