"In a post-Internet, post-mobile world of one click access, the distribution of products has all but ceased to be the issue. When one of something can be efficiently shipped to anyone, anywhere, the question of where the sale takes place is rapidly becoming moot. In other words, in the long-term, sales of product simply can’t be the primary strategic purpose or metric for the store.
Some of the world’s largest retailers are struggling with this jarring reality already. ‘Stack it high and watch it fly’ has abruptly turned into ‘stack it low and hope it goes’ as big box stores scramble to lower inventories in the face of flat or declining sales. The knee-jerk reaction among some is to simply downsize and marginalize the role of the store. Others are adopting the buzzword of omni-channel – resigning to the idea that all channels now act as one – which I would argue risks oversimplifying what’s really happening.
You see, what’s actually evolving is a new and far more complex role for the store, and online brands like Google, Bonobos and Warby Parker are affirming it, as they each embark on creating their own, branded, physical stores. They along with a growing number of other online pure-plays recognize that in order to ‘fully actualize’ their brands, they need to animate a physical presence and visceral experience for their consumers, not to move products but more critically, to move hearts and minds – to sell the idea, essence and values of the brand – all of which has more traditionally been viewed as the role of media. And therein lies the critical point.
The physical store is becoming media."
- The Store Is Media And Media Is The Store (via Emergent Futures Tumblelog, futuristgerd)
The Death of the American Shopping Mall
Malls are becoming ghost towns. They are not viable now and will only get less so as online continues to steal retail sales from brick-and-mortar stores. Continued bankruptcies among historic mall anchors will increase the pressure on these marginal malls, as will store closures from retailers working to optimize their business. Hundreds of malls will soon need to be repurposed or demolished. Strong malls will stay strong for a while, as retailers are willing to pay for traffic and customers from failed malls seek offline alternatives, but even they stand in the path of the shift of retail spending from offline to online.
This in turn creates further opportunity for online commerce. If I were thinking of starting a new retail brand right now, I would unquestionably start it online. And many very talented entrepreneurs are doing just this. I personally shop at Bonobos for pants, J.Hilburn for sweaters, Ledbury for shirts and Warby Parker for eyeglasses. All of these brands design and source their own goods. They historically would have started in the mall but they now are starting online, a trend that will undoubtedly continue. There clearly will be fewer new offline retailers to take the space vacated by the disappearing brick-and-mortar chains, further pressuring malls.
And in an ironic turn, many of these online brands are experimenting with offline stores—but typically with some important twists. Bonobos and Warby Parker have built showrooms in their New York offices where consumers can come in and try on samples. But if the consumer wants to purchase items, then the companies fulfill the product from their warehouses—they don’t stock inventory in their “stores.”
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Here’s another perk we just heard about: If you don’t need your order in two days, Amazon will sometimes pay you to accept a slower ship time.
So Amazon has now upped the retail ante from free shipping to we-pay-you shipping.
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The Social Commerce Attribution Problem: IBM Says Twitter Referred 0% Of Black Friday Traffic
As a whole IBM says social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube generated 0.34% of all online sales on Black Friday, down 35% from 2011. The lack of sales attribution, especially for paid ads, is a problem for the entire industry.
"75% of the items offered by Best Buy are cheaper on Amazon, on average by 17%."
- Best Buy’s Amazon price match is a $400M all-in bet it can’t win
The death of cash - Fortune Tech
And it’s not just innovative startups like Square that hope to reinvent payments for the mobile era, but also everyone from mega-technology companies to financial institutions, giant telecoms, and national retailers. Until those companies agree on common technology standards and platforms, mobile payments won’t work across devices, wireless networks, credit card types, and retailers.
"Consider this: In the first quarter of 2011, Facebook made up 88% of the social traffic to retailers, and Pinterest made up 1%. A year later, Facebook made up only 60%, and Pinterest made up 26%."
- E-Commerce Is Head Over Heels for Pinterest, and for Good Reason D
"1 in 4 people abandons surfing to a website if its page takes longer than four seconds to load."
- via Fast Company
"Amazon calculated that a page load slowdown of just 1 second could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year. Google has calculated that by slowing its search results by just four tenths of a second they could lose 8 million searches per day—meaning they’d serve up many millions fewer online adverts."
- via Fast Company
"A lot of really good businesses build their business model around getting to 10% conversion rate to purchasers within 6 to 12 months. It’s simply amazing that we’re seeing 10% conversion to purchase within the first week for iPad users."
- Fab CEO Jason Goldberg | Fab: In 2 Years, iPad Users Will Account For A Quarter Of Our Revenue
"More than 40% of Fab’s usage comes from its mobile apps. And here’s something else: mobile shoppers purchase more often and with bigger basket sizes than Fab’s web shoppers do."
- One Year Post-Pivot, Fab.com Is On Track To $100M In Revenue In 2012
