Disruption. In Human Terms.

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Manchester Vermont is One of Many Towns to Feel Effects of E-Commerce

This is a heart-breaking piece about the effect of e-commerce on Manchester Vermont, where the commercial vacancy rate has risen from 5 to 15%. People seem to be legitimately suffering. Choice quote, "Morrow admitted to sleepless nights, staring at the ceiling and worrying about the economic storms stirred by Internet commerce." Yikes. Our readers know that we like to snark but this is no laughing matter. 

Retail bankruptcies are so common these days that perhaps we've become de-sensitized to the effect that this rapid change is having. Prior to Payless and Gymboree - two recent actual reorganizations - most of these businesses have liquidated. Those are jobs gone forever. That is tax revenue gone forever. Others have pivoted towards the internet and e-comm only, leaving shuttered brick-and-mortar and blighted communities in their wake. 

Is this depressing for a Monday? You bet. But we hope that it provides a little bit of motivation to those restructuring professionals out there reading this. Maybe you can help drive a retail client towards a resolution that keeps it in business? 

We also hope that it provides those tech entrepreneurs looking to "disrupt" the world a little bit of perspective. While the article may be speaking about "unintended consequences," they are consequences nonetheless. And those consequences are affecting thousands of lives.