The retail apocalypse is not upon us. At least this is the view of the analysts at the market research firm eMarketer, who recently commented that they don’t believe “online buying is taking over the world.” For many consumers, “brick-and-mortar shopping is still important,” the firm said. “They’ll spend almost 90 percent of their retail dollars in person [inside retail stores] this year, and a large portion of that foot traffic will come from ‘webrooming.’”

“Webrooming,” according to the firm, is the process of researching a product online before going to a physical store to make a purchase. This practice has helped boost in-store traffic for some leading retailers over the past year.

When Ulta Beauty's online sales growth didn’t meet expectations, the company’s chief executive officer attributed this to the “customers’ desire to visit stores to see and test makeup from digitally native brands like Morphe Cosmetics and Kylie Cosmetics,” according to eMarketer, which noted that Ulta Beauty expects to open 80 new U.S. stores this year.

The Home Depot also reported increased in-store traffic in 2018, which the chain’s executives attributed to BOPUS (buy online, pick up in-store). “These online shoppers see the relevance of our stores,” a Home Depot executive said on a call with investors in February, according to eMarketer. Home Depot, similar to Ulta Beauty, is moving to expand its footprint in 2019, something it hasn’t done in several years, the research firm said.

Millennials, as expected, are most likely to webroom, with four in 10 doing this during the 2018 holiday season, compared with 35 percent of Gen Xers and 33 percent of baby boomers, according to the research firm Oath. “As millennials age, and webrooming continues to gain prominence, retailers will likely focus on further streamlining the omnichannel journey,” eMarketer said.