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[–] sakuramboo ago 

I hope not.

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[–] heygeorge 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

This account is SCP farming, please ignore or better yet, downvote.

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[–] EricHunting ago 

I question whether there will be many retail stores in the future. For about a decade I've only ever shopped at grocery and hardware stores. In the US department stores, appliance stores, and large shopping malls are dying at a steady pace, replaced by 'big box' stores and online shopping. Automated shipping and distribution aided by self-driving vehicles will soon be turning those big boxes into automated warehouse facilities, eliminating shipping delays for online purchase of more common consumables.

In the future Amazon, or businesses like it, will become a municipal utility spread across the globe. A storage and distribution 'cloud' for goods much like the cloud storage services of the Internet, hosting countless online businesses and also offering personal goods storage services. The only storefront businesses left will be related to 'convenience' and 'lifestyle' in the urban setting. They will be things like small fresh produce groceries and bakeries, bookshops, craft shops, traditional sit-down restaurants, cafes, pubs, beauty salons, tattoo parlors, and body mod shops. These are things where the 'store' is not merely providing goods distribution but human service and 'third places' in the environment where people socialize.

There will also be totally automated convenience kiosks and fast food, like oversize vending machines. We may see food 'courts' like those in large shopping malls, but set on their own in the urban and suburban space as a cluster of automated fast food kiosks akin to Japan's now 'nostalgic' vending machine restaurants.

Gift cards will likely still be around in the future but may be more 'virtual' in nature following trends in digital currency and may be limited to those few kinds of storefronts where large corporate brands persist; cafes and fast food. Online shopping also uses gift cards but with companies like Amazon their gift card balances can be applied to goods sold both by Amazon themselves and by their Amazon Market sellers. As Amazon and other online marketplaces become more generic in nature, we may see gift cards that apply to an online retail network of many virtual vendors rather than one store. We are also seeing growth in the adoption of local community 'scrips'; town and city level 'local money' intended to encourage local commerce. This has been growing in continental Europe.