On Fri, 5 May 2017 08:42:54 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

You lose the store jobs but gain some warehouse/order picker jobs. when
you ship rather than go to a store. You also gain some jobs in the
delivery system, US, Fedex, USPS.

Retail outlets require a lot more labor than shipping from a central
site, even when you account for the delivery drivers. Stock pickers at
the warehouse will stay busy all day. In B&M, you either have people
standing around not doing much or you have minimal service for the
customer. The biggest saving beyond that is inventory. When you stock
at a central site you eliminate a whole level of distribution and
carrying charges on stuff that is sitting on a shelf waiting for a
local person to buy it. Stores try to predict sales and have things
arrive just in time to be sold but when they guess wrong, you show up
and they are sold out. That is easier to even out on a national scale
from central sites. Worst case is they have to ship from a warehouse
that is farther away.