Now that Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is the last surviving member of the national specialty consumer electronics retail club, where can it go? Up and up. Sure, mass chains like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and others have stepped up to the plate and are greatly enhancing their consumer electronics sections, but then again Best Buy has a new CEO who is thinking differently and isn't going to give an inch if he can help it.

This is not an abstraction: buildings large and small are showing gaping vacancies. Storefronts are empty. Entire buildings sit waiting to be occupied. In Manhattan, retail vacancies have reached their highest rates since 2001. For the second quarter of this year, vacancies hit the absurd height of 12.4%, thanks to unemployment trends that won't quit and consumers reluctant to pry open their wallets.

Retailers are being hit just like the residential market.

Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is widely assumed to be the biggest beneficiary of the downfall of Circuit City, but Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is looking to crash that party. "Circuit City's business is up for grabs right now and we expect to get our share," Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of home entertainment, told (subscription required) the Wall Street Journal.

Companies like Nintendo and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) will get their own in-store displays, and Wal-Mart will also be revamping its electronics departments to create a more open and interactive Best Buy-like shopping experience. Wal-Mart has been trying to move upmarket in the consumer electronics business for years, and offering Palm's soon to be released Pre smart phone is another part of that strategy.

• Corporate bankruptcies -- Experts are predicting one of the biggest waves of corporate bankruptcies and restructurings in years. Already, Circuit City Stores Inc. (OTC: CCTYQ) has bitten the dust and the year is just getting started. Loads of retailers who are already operating on the razor's edge of profitability may be pushed over the edge. I doubt that enough credit will be unlocked by government fiat to address this problem.

After negotiations to find a buyer failed, Circuit City will liquidate its U.S. stores. According to court papers filed this morning, the Richmond, Virginia-based company has appointed three companies to liquidate its inventory. The company, which filed for bankruptcy in November, had a deadline of today to find a buyer.