LOS ANGELES—Commercial landlords should take notice. Within thelast several months, one women's clothing retailer after anotherhas gone out of business. On Dec. 4, 2014, Philadelphia-basedDeb Shops filed Chapter 11. Next cameDelia's, based in New York, which filed bankruptcyonly four days later. On Jan. 9, 2015, BodyCentral, based in Florida, a chain with 265 stores,announced that it was closing all of its stores by way of anassignment for the benefit of creditors, an alternative to federalbankruptcy. On Jan. 15, Wet Seal, a SouthernCalifornia-based company, filed its own Chapter 11. Then on Feb. 4,Cachè, another New York-based chain filed Chapter11. In addition to these, Jones New York andKate Spade Saturday recently announced that theirretail locations would be closing.

If one is an anomaly, two a coincidence and three a trend, thenwe should pay attention when we see so many substantial retailwomen's clothing companies file bankruptcy all within a few months.There is anecdotal evidence that as millennials get older and startto assert their spending power, traditional brick-and-mortarbusinesses may be in for some tough times. Everyone has probablyheard some version of the story about the teenage girls at thelocal mall, trying on clothes. Rather than buy anything, they allopen up apps or websites on their smartphones and order the sameclothes online (presumably, less expensively). Urban legend or not,if brick-and-mortar stores don't quickly adapt by focusing on theright amount of e-commerce, then the past three months are likelyto repeat themselves.

And it won't be limited to women's fashion. We already know whathappened to large chain bookstores in the last five years. Try tofind one. Maybe you will get lucky and there will be a Barnes &Noble in the area. But there are not many left. Less than one forevery 500 Starbucks locations, I would guess. Yet people still buybooks. They just buy them online, or read them as e-books.