Written by Julien Ricciarelli-Bonnal
21 September 2026
The Essentials
Physical retail was supposed to become increasingly marginal as e-commerce expanded. Yet some brands are still opening stores at a remarkable pace. LPP plans around 750 new Sinsay stores in 2026, while continuing to develop its online sales at the same time. This does not mean digital commerce is losing ground. It suggests that the opposition between physical stores and e-commerce is becoming less relevant. When the format, price, location and customer experience fit the market, a physical store can remain a powerful engine for growth, acquisition and local presence, even within an increasingly digital retail environment.
For more than fifteen years, the death of physical retail has returned regularly in predictions about the future of commerce. The rise of Amazon, the expansion of e-commerce, mobile apps and changing digital habits all seemed likely to reduce stores to a handful of sectors where products still needed to be touched, tried or discussed with a salesperson.
Reality has proved far less linear. Some retailers have indeed reduced their estates, closed stores that became too expensive or shifted a significant part of their activity online. Others continue to open hundreds of locations while investing heavily in digital commerce at the same time.
Sinsay now provides a particularly striking example. LPP plans around 750 new openings for the brand in 2026. This expansion comes while the group is posting strong growth and has no intention of abandoning e-commerce. Physical retail is therefore not being used as protection against digital competition, but as one component of a much broader distribution model.
The example is a useful reminder that a channel does not disappear simply because another one becomes more efficient. Its value depends on what it contributes to the business model, the customer experience and the brand.
E-commerce has not eliminated the value of proximity
Online commerce has brought advantages that are impossible to dispute. Customers can browse an offer at any time, compare products rapidly, access a far wider catalogue and buy without travelling anywhere. For companies, it also opens markets without requiring a physical presence in every geographical area.
But that efficiency has never entirely removed the value of proximity. A store does more than process a transaction. It makes a brand visible within a local area, enables discovery without a prior search, provides immediate access to products and can dramatically reduce the effort required to make a purchase.
This matters particularly for brands positioned around relatively accessible and frequent purchases. Consumers do not necessarily conduct extensive research before every transaction. They may enter a store because they pass it, already know the brand or simply want to leave with the product immediately.
The store therefore becomes both a sales channel and an acquisition tool. Its location, frontage and footfall can perform a role that digital marketing sometimes has to keep paying for continuously.
Sinsay is not choosing between stores and digital
One of the most persistent mistakes in analysing retail is to treat channels as competitors that must eventually eliminate one another.
A company with a large physical estate is not necessarily behind in its digital transformation. Equally, a business generating a growing share of sales online does not automatically benefit from reducing its stores. The relevant question is what each channel contributes and how different customer journeys reinforce one another.
A customer may first discover a retailer in a shopping centre, buy later from its website, return to a store several weeks afterwards and then use digital channels again to browse the range. Conversely, an online search may introduce the brand before a nearby store ultimately converts that interest into a purchase.
The boundary between physical and digital commerce is therefore becoming less clear than channel sales figures sometimes suggest. The final transaction does not always reveal where preference was originally created.
This is also why businesses need to consider the value of a channel beyond the revenue it generates. A store can produce direct sales, but also build local awareness, reassure customers, simplify returns or increase the frequency of contact with the brand. Conversely, an apparently profitable channel can become much less attractive if it costs too much to operate or gradually removes value from other points of contact.
The store is not dead, but some store formats may be
Sinsay’s expansion does not mean every physical retailer suddenly has a bright future. Stores continue to close, and some established brands are struggling precisely because their estates were designed around behaviours that have changed.
The more useful lesson is probably elsewhere. A physical store is not a business model in itself. It is a format whose relevance depends on its cost, location, assortment and the value proposition it carries.
A large store in an area where footfall is declining, carrying high rent and offering products that can be easily substituted online, can become extremely vulnerable. A few kilometres away, a more accessible and flexible retailer that is better aligned with local expectations may continue attracting customers and justify further expansion.
Digital commerce has therefore not so much killed the store as removed part of its immunity. For a long time, simply having a physical location was almost automatically an advantage because customers had fewer alternatives. Today, they can order from their sofa. A store has to offer a sufficiently clear reason to make the journey worthwhile.
That reason does not need to be spectacular. It can be price, proximity, immediate availability, convenience or the right product range. Physical retail does not always need to become immersive or theatrical. It mainly needs to remain useful.
Physical expansion can also be a strategy for market conquest
Opening hundreds of stores also has a dimension that purely transactional analysis can easily underestimate: occupying territory.
Every new location makes a brand more familiar. A retailer that was previously known mainly in certain regions can gradually become part of everyday life in a growing number of towns and cities. Repetition builds awareness that digital channels can subsequently amplify.
A store can therefore function as a permanent medium. It exposes the name, products and positioning to thousands of people who may never have searched for the brand on Google or visited a marketplace. In smaller cities or areas where physical competition is less intense, that presence can become particularly powerful.
For a company in expansion, choosing the right channels is therefore a genuine matter of commercial strategy and business development. The objective is not to follow the supposed direction of the market, but to identify where the business creates the most value and under what conditions its channels can reinforce one another.
This is why major store-opening programmes remain so interesting in an economy that is already deeply digital. They do not necessarily represent a return to the past. They may instead reveal a much more modern understanding of distribution.
The real change may be the end of the war between physical and digital retail
The narrative around the disappearance of stores was based on a reasonable assumption: if consumers can buy more easily from home, they will inevitably travel less to make purchases. Part of that prediction came true. E-commerce has profoundly redistributed sales volumes and forced entire sectors to rethink the way they operate.
Turning that shift into a story of complete replacement was probably too simplistic.
The most interesting companies to watch today are not necessarily those that have chosen one side permanently. They are often the ones that use digital channels where they provide convenience, stores where they provide proximity, and both when the combination improves customer experience and commercial performance.
Sinsay’s planned hundreds of openings do not prove that physical retail has won its battle against the internet. There may no longer be a battle to win.
They demonstrate something far more pragmatic: a channel remains relevant for as long as it answers one part of the customer’s needs better than the alternatives and contributes meaningfully to the economics of the business.
Physical retail may not have returned from the dead. It was simply never dead everywhere.
If your company needs to choose between sales channels, strengthen its distribution or rethink its commercial development, we can help you structure those decisions without artificially opposing channels that can work together.
Written by Julien Ricciarelli-Bonnal
21 September 2026
