Big brick-and-mortar retailers like Sears and K-Mart have been closing stores across the country following a large drop in sales over the years.
Retailers in Southern California are feeling the crunch, too, and closing up shop.
"Specialty Southern California retailer Bebe just announced that it was, indeed, shuttering all of its 168 stores by the end of May," says Michelle Dalton Tyree of Fashion Trends Daily. "L.A.-based retailer BCBG, founded by designer Max Azria in 1989, is closing 120 of its 175 U.S. stores, too"
And Wet Seal, also based in California, will close its 171 stores.
"It's feeling like a retail apocalypse out there," says Tyree, "and many retailers are running for cover."
Online shopping is driving this fallout, and it's the mid-range retailers that are feeling the squeeze.
"After the Great Recession of 2008, people were really trained to wait for deals, seek out sales, shop more economically," says Tyree.
That means discount and fast-fashion retailers like TJ Maxx and H&M are still going strong from people looking for low prices.
Luxury retailers are also weathering the storm because of their reputations as status symbols.
But the decline of certain mall staples has put a strain on employment in Southern California, too.
According to the LA Economic Development Corporation, in L.A. County alone there are 51,800 people working in retail clothing stores right now, down from 57,000 in 2007.
There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon east of L.A.: as more people order clothes online, there's a rising demand in staff for the warehouses that ship them to homes.
"We're seeing in places such as the Inland Empire the growth of these massive warehouse to handle the amount of e-commerce distribution going on," says LAEDC economist Kimberly Ritter-Martinez.
Amazon has five warehouses in the Inland Empire alone.
Plus JC Penney, which operates 79 stores in California, is actually moving its Buena Park distribution center to a new facility in that same region.
Meanwhile, malls are looking at creative ways to fill up the spaces vacated by retailers.
"They're adding gyms, medical offices, I've even seen churches go up in some of these kind of places," says Ritter-Martinez. "They're doing things to attract people that involve something other than going to a clothing store."