Declining foot traffic and slumping profit margins are forcing several brick-and-mortar retailers to shift into survival mode. Consumers are doing more of their shopping online, lured by the convenience and great deals offered by Amazon and other competitors. As a result, the stores are tweaking their strategies, hoping to rake in big sales in the process. For one, Wal-Mart has been forking over cash to increase sales online, buying discounter Jet.com and building out its distribution system. It's also invested in remodeling hundreds of stores, reducing inventories, and pushing down prices. Target will forego $1 billion in profits by lowering prices and pushing digital sales with lower margins. It will also spend billions to renovate roughly 600 stores and open 100 smaller ones over the next few years. As part of its ongoing effort to get smaller to combat losses, Sears will be closing another 100 Sears and Kmart stores in 2017. Having already sold off its Craftsman tools b...

Yesterday, I stopped by Barnes & Noble on the way home, and I couldn't help but notice it looked unusually crowded. I felt like I was at a jam-packed Toys ''R" Us or Wal-Mart rather than a bookstore. Then I remembered: It's the holidays, dummy! And I went on a good day: Magazines were 30% off, so I snagged a special edition of TIME , which focused on the psychology of relationships, and the latest edition of Lapham's Quarterly , which centers on none other than my favorite historical figure of late -- Alexander Hamilton. I later ventured over to the kids aisle and saw a Star Wars toy that I know my nephew will go gaga over. And I grabbed it just in time, as a kid came up to me and asked where exactly had I seen the toy. To his dismay, it was the very last item of its kind in stock. It was only one day after Black Friday and I had already gotten a taste of the holiday shopping frenzy that's sure to sweep the nation over the next couple of week...