Real estate is insanely expensive - you have to sell a lot of shoes with your "100% markup" to make rent.
The flip side however - e-commerce with its totally different cost structure and same traditional RRP as brick and mortar retail - should be - a gift from above for retailers.
In some cases, in e-commerce your trading rent for shipping expenses. It helps you scale quicker as you have wider reach but the variable cost of shipping and taking returns can go sideways.
The good thing about rent is it’s relatively fixed so it’s possible to gain leverage with volume. That is also a risk if volume shrinks, etc.
The flip side however - e-commerce with its totally different cost structure and same traditional RRP as brick and mortar retail - should be - a gift from above for retailers.