Brick-and-mortar retail-store closures are hardly news these days. As older merchants try to fend off the endless assault of e-commerce, the hit list of dead and dying retailers only seems to grow longer.

Sports Authority and Vestis Retail Group, the operator of Sport Chalet and Eastern Mountain Sports, recently declared bankruptcy. Together, the pair will close 196 sporting-goods stores across the nation as more people shop for cleats and field-hockey sticks online.

Hancock Fabrics, a crafty retailer founded in 1957, recently announced it would be closing all of its 185 stores as it files for bankruptcy this year.

There’s also retailer Staples US:SPLS, which just announced it’s closing another 50 stores despite shedding 242 North American locations in the past two fiscal years. And there’s Tailored Brands TLRD, +2.09% , which is shuttering 250 of its Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank locations after ending 2015 with a $1 billion shortfall.

This, my friends, is how retail dies.

An e-commerce death spiral

There are many who blame Amazon.com AMZN, -1.78% for the end of retail as we know it. And they are partly correct.

Consider that real estate research firm Green Street Advisors just estimated that roughly 800 department stores — about a fifth of all “anchor” retail space in U.S. shopping malls — will probably have to close for retailers to reach the same level of profitability from 10 years ago.

According to the report, Sears Holdings US:SHLD would have to close almost half of its stores to reach the same level of sales per square foot it had in 2006.

Sears seems to be well on its way, too, with the company recently detailing 78 Sears and Kmart locations that will liquidate their inventories over the next few months. Sears also said in February that it will speed up its future store-closure plans after another round of ugly sales numbers.

E-commerce is surely to blame for some of those lost revenues. However, a new analysis from Bain & Co. indicates that falling sales become a self-fulfilling prophecy for retailers that cut their brick-and-mortar footprint.

Specifically, Bain found that closing physical locations can create as much as a 20% drag on e-commerce sales. Furthermore, an analysis of 15 years of retail data shows that merchants that close stores in response to sluggish sales may momentarily stop the bleeding, but also fail to ever return to growth in the future.

“In many ways, stores function as a marketing vehicle for e-commerce, keeping the brand top of mind for shoppers within a given trade area,” according to Bain.

In short, losing out to e-commerce creates immediate pain but also a death spiral of store closures and brand tarnish as retailers give up on growth and rely on cuts to stay alive.

At least until there’s nothing more to cut. Then, like Sports Authority or Hancock Fabrics, they simply call it quits altogether.

Who will survive?

Many may point out that some of these troubled retailers are not just a victim of e-commerce competition, but also poor management.

Take the aforementioned Sears, which saw big pressure as discounter Wal-Mart WMT, -1.02% rose to power in the 1990s. Sears joined up with Kmart in 2005 under an $11 billion deal spearheaded by Eddie Lampert.

“Mired in a retail slump, Sears had long fallen out of favor on Wall Street after losing ground to competitors and enduring sluggish sales for years,” read one report at the time — something that, word for word, could apply to the situation at Sears a decade later.

Fiscal 2006 revenue for the newly combined Sears and Kmart was over $53 billion, but Sears Holdings Corp. will finish this fiscal year with about $22.2 billion in sales, less than half that figure.

Part of the problem was that Sears’ commoditized goods were easily comparison-shopped online. But the retailer also suffered from changing consumer tastes, and the value added by a brand. Sears used to have flagship in-house brands that included Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools, but the brands have failed to retain relevancy over time. Other brands with actual value, like Lands’ End LE, +1.50% , have already been sold or spun off to leave the parent company alone to twist in the wind.

Should we really be surprised that customers have fled?

Contrast that with Home Depot HD, -1.70% , one of the biggest retail success stories of the past few decades. Yes, the dominant home-improvement retailer saw pressures on its top line amid one of the worst housing downturns in history, with net sales still down from the $90.8 billion recorded in fiscal 2006. However, Home Depot has actually increased its store count across that period, and net earnings have risen from $5.8 billion 10 years ago to $7 billion in 2015.

And perhaps most importantly for investors, Home Depot HD, -1.70% stock has gained 230% in the past 10 years to more than triple the benchmark S&P 500 Index in the same period.

The reasons why this home-improvement retailer has succeeded are quite interesting. In part, it’s because lumber and paving stones are hard to commoditize via online shopping; the mere weight alone makes shipping difficult, and the need to look at grains in wood and contrast paint colors in real life help. But that hasn’t stopped Home Depot from pushing what it can to the web. In fiscal 2015, $4.7 billion of its $88.5 billion in revenue came from online sales.

Most importantly, online is growing fast — it’s up over $1 billion, or 26%, year-over-year. That helps offset any e-commerce drain elsewhere and actually adds to growth.

‘Omnichannel’ is more than just a buzzword

For investors, there are no easy ways to identify who will succeed and who will fail in retail. It’s a question of many factors, including a strong brand and a growing brick-and-mortar footprint to complement a shift to e-commerce.

It’s also clearly about margins, as Home Depot proves. Yes, Home Depot sales are still down from where they were 10 years ago. But its profits are up materially, and so is its share price.

This is the magic formula other retailers are racing to recreate, often using the buzzword of “omnichannel” sales tactics. Think allowing customers to order a product online and pick it up in-store, or actively encouraging “showrooming,” where shoppers can try stuff on in the real world but order online.

The challenge, of course, is putting theory into practice in a way that actually results in sales.

A lot of companies are talking a good game right now, like Macy’s M, -1.45% , which recently restructured senior management in a nod to this approach, and loves to talk about the value of its customer data and its commitment to evolving with technology as well as consumer tastes.

However, like so many other retailers, Macy’s is also trying to keep investors happy by closing stores and reducing capital expenditures by about 10% to cut costs and prop up margins. That means maintaining a quality in-store experience, investing in technology and keeping its brand relevant will all have to happen with fewer resources and more Wall Street pressure.

Maybe Macy’s can do it. And maybe others will, too. But the death spiral of e-commerce pressures and cost-cutting that alienates consumers seems to be way too much for many retailers right now.

That means more bankruptcies, more vanished brands amid consolidation and mergers — like the mashup of Office Max and Office Depot ODP, -0.46% and the currently delayed Office Depot ODP, -0.46% -Staples deal.

Other retailers will surely exist in the age of Amazon. But for legacy merchants that are behind the times and suffering slumping sales, they already may be beyond saving.