If the past 10 years have seen substantial investment by retailers in their online operations, they will be heavily investing in their stores over the coming decade, McGee told Bloomberg Radio. “Those retailers that are winning are really the ones that are investing in their store networks,” he said, citing a recently released study that shows that traffic to retail websites increases when retailers open stores, and that it declines when they close them. “You see so many digitally native retailers that said they were never going to open up stores that are now opening up stores.” McGee points to online home-furnishings site Wayfair and mattress e-tailer Casper, the latter of which has pledged to open about 200 stores over the next three years to help spur customer loyalty.

Opening a store helps pump up traffic to a retailer’s website within a given market by some 37 percent, on average, during the quarter that follows, according to the study, titled The Halo Effect: How Bricks Impact Clicks. And the impact is even more dramatic when this involves emerging brands.

Retailers have learned that it is no longer a question of online versus offline, but rather a convergence of both channels that leads to success, McGee said. “I think that sometimes people get hung up on this online-versus-physical discussion, and that discussion has long gone," he asserted. "It’s really about being a retailer that’s there to serve your customers regardless of channel. I really believe that we’re living in a retail renaissance.”