If the Internet and online selling are truly causing the death of retailing as we know it, then what better way to acknowledge the process than by using the famous Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief... slightly altered for the situation. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist, laid out her five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Two decades after the first customer clicked on an oddly named seller of books called Amazon, online retailing has totally turned the business of selling things - home textiles included - totally upside down. And as the industry gathers this week in New York for its twice-yearly market week, it is most fitting to chronicle how we got to where we are.
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