Those who portrayed brick-and-mortar stores as a relic of retail’s past have had to backtrack in a major way. Once regulatory restrictions allowed shoppers to visit physical stores once again, brick-and-mortar store sales grew faster than e-commerce sales for the first year in retail’s recorded history. Still, practitioners of brick-and-mortar must not take their own staying power for granted.

While brick-and-mortar sales may continue to grow as a whole, the success of individual organizations i...