Department Stores, R.I.P.

Investor's Business Daily reports further milestones along the road to irrelevancy for department stores.

Sears. Macy's. Kohl's. Traditional department store retailers have taken hard hits over the Christmas holidays, with sales lagging the generally robust performance of retailers overall. Now, these mall stalwarts are slashing thousands of jobs and hundreds of stores, trying to right-size themselves. It's no coincidence. A few years back, it was discounter Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer on earth, announcing it was closing 100 stores.

What's going on here? In a word, Amazon.com. The online e-retailing giant has become a dominant force in the retailing business, removing millions of customers from the nation's malls and letting them do their shopping online at bedrock discount prices. So-called brick-and-mortar stores are vulnerable to this technology-driven wave of "creative destruction" sweeping the industry.

My first job out of college - a lifetime ago - was at Macy's, it was dreary. Probably helped me decide to get more degrees, so not a total loss. Learning what you don't want to do for a living is important too.