Changing Retail Landscape.

• End of wholesale.
  • Doug Stephens, founder of Retail Prophet, makes the claim that the traditional wholesale model must change given the growing e-commerce market. With the retail store no longer the main distribution point, competition for the same goods is fierce, which makes wholesale a losing business model. With this turn, he doesn’t believe the retail store format is irrelevant, but rather needs to shift to become about selling an experience. In doing so, he believes retailers need to charge vendors for this increased engagement, yet also justify it via data. Read more here.
• End of retail jobs.
  • Derek Thompson of The Atlantic brings awareness to how retail jobs are contracting with the same impact of e-commerce and direct-to-consumer shopping trends, along with retail chain consolidation. Our changing shopping habits have an hidden impact on the economy and job landscape.
• End of malls.
  • The suburban landscape is changing, as we wrote in Suburban Blight last year. The continued effects of the Great Recession, along with our changing shopping behaviors, have contributed to malls in harder hit areas being shuttered. In this Fast Company article by Adele Peters, she features photos from Seph Lawless and his book, “Black Friday.”

The Industry Forecast: Help me navigate the new world of retail focused on consumer experience and analytics.

Photo Credit: Nicholas Eckhart

Sources:

Peters, Adele. “Surreal Photos Of Abandoned, Snow-Filled Malls Show The Death Of An Era In America,” Fast Company Co.Exist, February 11, 2015. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3042263/surreal-photos-of-abandoned-snow-filled-malls-show-the-death-of-an-era-in-america

Stephens, Doug. “The Future of Retail is the End of Wholesale,” BOF, February 5, 2015. http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/opinion/future-retail-end-wholesale

Thompson, Derek. “Where Did All the Retail Jobs Go?,” The Atlantic, February 6, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/the-big-chill-of-retail/385213/