As fast as the list of financially distressed retailer nameplates has grown around the world this year, an increasing number of them are emerging as fronts for online-only businesses.

Battleground
“Ecommerce is… and will be the global retail battleground with brick and mortar taking a backseat” as retailers shut stores and sell their most valuable asset: Their names, identities, customer lists and other IP, says a licensee executive.

The strategy, which built on leveraging a well-known brick-and-mortar merchant’s image while it still remains relevant, has gone global. Just a little over a month after UK-based Arcadia Group (whose well known retail operations include Debenham’s, Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge) filed for bankruptcy, online fashion retailers entered the bidding to buy the brands, but not the stores — Boohoo going for Debenham’s, and Asos for Topman, Topshop, Miss Selfridge.

Pickup points
While both Asos and Boohoo are expected to keep some physical locations open as customer order pick-up and delivery points, the bulk of them will close, creating a sizeable void in the UK’s high street business.

“The downfall of Debenham’s and others was not the merchandise and positioning, but rather the high cost of rent and lack of a strong ecommerce model,” says an executive at UK licensing agency. “This is where Boohoo and Asos can provide operational support to help solve the ecommerce issues” and not be weighed down with store leases.

It’s a play that Boohoo has executed before, and course that was followed multiple times in the U.S. last year, as, for example,  Retail Ecommerce Ventures bought the IP (but not the stores) of Modell’s, Pier One and Stein Mart in a matter of months.

Boohoo bought High Street fashion retailer Oasis’ online business last June, marking its most recent in a string of business acquisitions that also included retailers Coast and Karen Millen a year earlier, similarly shutting stores while taking over their online business. The acquisition of  rival retailers both eliminates competitors and bulks up their businesses to battle the online behemoth, Amazon. Indeed, Boohoo says it will expand the range of merchandise offered at Debenham’s by maintaining the chain’s existing relationships and adding new items.

Meanwhile, Amazon is waging a battle in India, where it is trying to build its own presence. It’s in a legal fight to thwart retailer Reliance Industries’ bid for Future Retail Limited (of which Amazon owns a 4.8% stake). Reliance says it’s largely interested in Future’s online business in an ecommerce market that’s forecast to expand to $72 billion in sales by 2023, according to eMarketer.

And in Japan, Walmart is selling most of grocery chain Seiyu to KKR & Co. and ecommerce giant Rakuten, in a deal expected to close in the first quarter. KKR and Rakuten are seeking to shore up Seiyu’s online operations, rather than its stores, as ecommerce grows in Japan.