Last year I wrote a blog stating that office buildings are obsolete, and this year I’m thinking the same conjecture might also apply to big box stores. I recently noticed a Yahoo post entitled, The Coming Collapse of Commercial Real Estate is Already Here, by Stacy Curtin. Stacy aptly notes that Best Buy and Target missed their expected earnings targets, and as of this writing, Wal-Mart has seen 6 consecutive quarters of negative same store sales. Further, this happened to Best Buy even though a key competitor, CircuitCity, had moved into bankruptcy. Though this has occurred in a tough economy, many of their online competitors have seen significantly better results.

Stacy’s article notes that more people are buying, they are just buying online. This seems true globally and anecdotally. About a year ago, I tried to purchase a receiver from Best Buy, only a couple of miles from my home. Unfortunately the receiver was out of stock. In fact all the receivers that might have been of interest to me were out of stock. A couple of years ago, I would have driven across the street to the now defunct CircuitCity (speaking of brick and mortar retail challenges). Instead, I drove home, went online to Amazon and purchased a better receiver for less money, which was delivered a day later. Obviously, I’m not alone. Many of my friends and colleagues now make routine purchases from online e-tailers as progressively more consumers become comfortable with online searching and shopping.

My CPA buys all his books on his Kindle, as do I, a faster, easier and more cost effective alternative to the brick and mortar bookstore. The challenges for Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Blockbuster and Barnes & Noble are obvious, perhaps most evident by the huge electronic book display in the premium retail location at the front of the Barnes & Noble stores. B&N appears to be working hard to transition to a Kindle type operation with their new Nook. Better late than never, or simply too late for the date? Only time will tell, though their extensive brick and mortar costs may result in too much ballast for them to successfully navigate from retail to e-tail.

But retail isn’t alone in the commercial real estate challenge. Traditional office buildings will face a virtual workforce shift, as progressive companies opt for less costly and more efficient work from home staffing. This is happening with small virtual companies and giant corporations too. Working virtually has amazing advantages, from resolving the commute related issue with today’s snow storm in Boston, to using highly cost effective tools like Skype which allows multistate, multinational, multiparty video conferencing for pennies a day.

Do these changes spell the imminent destruction and removal of office buildings and big box retail? I think this is too strong a statement. There will likely be a need for many types of retail establishments, from groceries to lumber, from household items to convenience goods. And there will be office based businesses that require some or perhaps many employees to congregate. That said, the changes to brick and mortar retail and offices are upon us, gaining speed every day, as the convenience and cost efficacy of virtual business and e-tail offers a more accommodating path for the rapidly increasing, interconnected internet world.