In the pre-pandemic world, e-commerce was already a giant. Industry observers predicted it would account for more than a third of all retail sales by the year 2030. Now, roughly a year since we first heard about COVID-19, the virus helped accelerate the growth of e-commerce in a way few could have predicted in 2019. “Even older Americans are now accustomed to buying things online, so it’s pervasive,” said Jack Fraker, vice chairman and managing director at CBRE. Now that threshold of 39 percent of retail sales is viewed as something e-commerce could reach by mid-2027. To meet that consumer demand, Fraker said, there is and will be a need for much more industrial real estate. Texas markets, such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso, are benefitting from that push because of their ever-growing populations. On the one hand, explained Fraker, manufacturers want to get distribution hubs closer to their customers to satisfy the existing demands. More than ever, customers expect to receive goods within days of ordering, if not the very next day. “All those retail products have to reside inside warehouses for a while,” Fraker said. Click to read more at www.rednews.com.