The explosive growth of online retailing has had a devastating impact on traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. The tremendous success of online giants like Amazon(AMZN) have led to the death of many a retailer. Today the market cap of Amazon is over $920.0 billion while many of the former retail giants are fighting for survival. Some former giants such as Sears have completely failed.

The following table shows the change in market cap of major US retailers over the past 12 years:

Click to enlarge

Source: The power of disruption and what it means for Asia, Schroders

Amazon’s market cap has increased by 4,437 % over the past 12 years while most others have lost a huge portion of their value with the exception of Walmart(WMT). Sears shareholders have completely been wiped out.

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