E-commerce has grown in popularity and has caused many to speculate that physical shopping may become obsolete in the future.

Physical department store locations have faced a slow decline in recent years, with a sharper decline exacerbated by the pandemic in 2020 (see the section titled "Number of department store locations in the US" here).

Neuroscientist and fiction author Erik Hoel wrote the following about physical retail in the year 2050 in a blog post published August 25, 2021

The majority of all current brick and mortar stores that are not located in scenic or tightly-packed downtowns will have closed. From stores that sell physical objects to chain restaurants, most of the physical locations you can go and shop will be gone. Instead, you will be able to get any product you would normally buy in a physical store delivered to you in under an hour, sometimes in mere minutes.