As someone in advertising I've thought about this quite a bit. Especially since my primary client in recent years was/is a Department Store selling Items - Interestingly we took the approach to shift their advertising into Selling the Experience of their nice/new stores. That said, along with this modern move from Stuff to Experience - we also have way more entertainment than we've ever had before. Back 100 years ago a department store could have a really cool looking Store Front and hundreds of people would flock to see it because - why not? What else are they going to do for entertainment. Now? You can pick from thousands of Tv shows, movies, music albums in minutes - and that's just what the box in your pocket can offer you.

It's an interesting dilemma for some market sectors thats for sure.