Retail Concentration

Retail Concentration by Cook & Bynum

This article reflects sentiments that Inditex has previously shared about the present and future of retail, including the reallocation of total store square footage into fewer locations. These larger and impressive stores, in higher-end centers and locations, will serve as showpieces for certain brands and entry points for online shopping.

A few years ago, Restoration Hardware had three Denver-area stores scattered in malls. Today, the furniture chain has just one new one: a palatial, four-story gallery with a rooftop garden. Retailers from Gap Inc. to Abercrombie & Fitch Inc. are abandoning a decades-old strategy of growing sales by blanketing cities with stores as consumers do more of their shopping online and...