Oklahoma City stores are going with national trends but meeting local headwinds, Price Edwards & Co. reported in its midyear retail property market summary.

National trends are the continued blurring of digital sales and physical stores, increased consumer "experience" as part of sales, fast growth in discounters and heavy debt loads that can slow or thwart innovation.

Local trends are two old, familiar bugaboos: the return of slow population growth and the fickleness of the energy business — and they're probably related.

"Oklahoma City’s population growth has slowed in the last couple of years to 1% or less, depending on the source; this is a significant decline from the previous five years," Price Edwards said. "This decline may very well be related to changes in the energy industry and the reduction in the number of energy and energy-related jobs.