The end of e-commerce

We’ve gotten pretty used to talking about e-commerce and brick & mortar retail as if they were two entirely separate things operating in parallel universes. In fact, industry commentators often treat the “on-line shopper” as some sort of new species. Yet more and more the notion of e-commerce as a channel unto itself is collapsing. [...]

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The endless aisle and the world’s smallest parking lot

When I was in business school, one of the major consulting firms was notorious for asking interviewees the question: “what if energy were free?”  The short answer, of course, is “just about everything.” But the point of the question was to see if candidates could understand what a driving factor energy costs were in most [...]

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Shrinkage. Be prepared for more cold water.

Yesterday Best Buy announced its plans to shrink its U.S. big-box square footage by 10% to compete more effectively with Amazon and other digital competitors. Expect to hear more announcements like this–at least from those retailers who get how hard the winds of change are blowing for brick and mortar retailers. Physical retail is not going away, [...]

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The showroom of death

Maybe you have noticed that e-commerce has been growing far faster than brick and mortar retail. That’s been true for years and it’s not changing any time soon. Maybe you have noticed the explosion in comparison shopping sites that allow customers to easily search for the merchant with the best price. The number and quality [...]

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It’s the Experience Stupid! Why Retailers Need to Move Away From Product-Centricity

As I approach my 20th anniversary in the retail industry I continue to be amazed at the number of senior retail executives who go on and on about how “it’s all about the product.”  Nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, product is anywhere from pretty important to very important depending upon the particular retail concept and [...]

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