eOpicle

Every few months, someone announces the death of physical retail. The internet killed the department store. Amazon killed the shopping mall. Inflation killed discretionary spending. Smartphones killed our attention spans. Streaming killed our desire to leave the house. Self-checkout killed human interaction. And somewhere, at this very moment, a management consultant is putting the phrase “retail apocalypse” into a PowerPoint presentation while charging somebody $600 an hour. Then Academy Sports + Outdoors walks into the room carrying a tent, a fishing pole, three pairs of running shoes, a propane tank, and plans for eleven new stores. The company announced that it has opened two new locations and expects to open nine more during its fiscal third quarter. The eleven stores will be spread across six states: Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee. Together, they are expected to create more than 650 jobs. That does not sound like an apocalypse to me. It sounds more like a...