Future of Retail?
Curious about what you monkeys think of retail and where things will be in 5 or 10 years down the line.
There has been a lot of consolidation recently as major retails find innovative ways to fight Amazon and expand their e-commerce operations. Now Walmart is rumored to be in talks with Humana for a potential acquisition.
Do you think in a few years we will only shop online? Brick and mortar stores are also investing heavily into AI, transitioning to provide an "experience" for the customers. How will this impact the way we shop and the retail space overall?
Discuss.
Well it migh arrive sooner than expected : In France, Monoprix (it is not a large supermarket, less than 3000m² usually and in the city center and it is targeting upper classes) has signed a commercial agreement to have its product delivered through Amazon Prime... And this happened only a few days ago.
However this will be limited to Paris and as someone from the countryside I don't see this remplacing classical retail in those areas (at least not in 5-8 years).
My two cents
Definitely not going away, but drastically changing.
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Deep Thoughts on the Future of Retail Industry (Originally Posted: 02/20/2016)
It is 9:30 pm on a Sunday night, and I am editing my resume for the millionth time. I start to feel hungry. But I live in the armpit of Manhattan, and the ConEdison plant at the end of 14th street is the only building that graces my sight. So I navigate to postmates.com.
For those who don’t know, Postmates is a kind of GrubHub 2.0 where your “postmates” can deliver not only freshly made food but also clothes, general household items, and even prescription drugs (in some states) to your doorstep. It’s an invaluable time-saving tool—especially for those of us who simply cannot carry liters of detergent or cans upon cans of dog food around the city when we need them. Similarly, Amazon started a service called Amazon Prime Pantry, from which you can buy pet food and household items and have it all delivered to your apartment. Amazon is actually the dominant delivery service on the web, with the largest market-share in the online shopping industry.
This has me thinking about my other e-commerce addiction—Wag!, a kind of Uber for dog walking. This app connects dog walkers with pet owners who need their pooches walked, in real-time. Next is Hello Alfred, the so-called “online concierge,” which handles your grocery shopping, laundry, and dry cleaning with a simple online subscription.
All of the aforementioned services target busy young professionals with smartphones and a considerable amount of income to throw away on the simple comforts of life. All are easy to access with a little bit of technological literacy and essentially extinguish the need to visit retail giants like WalMart, Target, and Costco.
Delivery charges are minimal for the food services:
Source: http://topxweb.blogspot.com/2015/10/postmates-takes-on-ubereats-with-la…
Intense competition between start-ups drives delivery prices down, and in any case $1.99-$3.00 delivery charge is a small price to pay in comparison with the price of physically driving to the restaurant, which would include the cost of gas as well as the opportunity cost of the time spent driving.
This trend might soon reach the retail industry as well, as Postmates has started keeping inventory of their own for clothes and household items. Just imagine if these delivery times were possible for your clothing and shoes!
This trend is raising alarms in the retail industry, which may not be fully equipped to compete with Amazon and the like. A recent article in The Time describes how malls, which used to be popular hang-out spots and centers of commerce, are becoming less and less profitable due to online competition.
It’s not hard to imagine living in a world where I eschew movie theaters in favor of Netflix and Vudu and stop shopping in physical stores because there is same-day delivery for the clothing I like.
Any thoughts on the how the retail industry might be changing?
P.S.
Thanks to the Superbowl, my postmates canceled on me three times in the past hour, and I had to switch back to GrubHub for tonight. Oh well…
Source: http://time.com/money/4166279/malls-losing-anchor-stores/
Next time try Seamless. They delivered to me shortly after Sandy when I lived in downtown. The place was a fucking ghost town but my food made it to me.
By the way, when I lived downtown I had figured out how to live most of my life without doing a thing for myself. Fresh Direct and Soap delivered the majority of the food and household items I used, Whole Foods delivered the rest. For the 4-legged friends, Wag.com made sure they were kept in kibble and treats. Boomerang picked up and delivered my laundry and dry-cleaning (even washing with the environmentally friendly soap I requested), while Alpine Cleaners picked up the slack if I was too lazy to even give 24-48 hours notice that I needed something. Since my oven was used as storage, I rarely cooked and subsisted on a combination of Seamless and Postmates - preferring Seamless for the cheaper delivery charges but using Postmates when I just HAD to have Chipotle.
I will say, it fucking sucks now that I am in the 'burbs and no longer have all the conveniences of the city. I have to do my own Target runs and the only delivery is pizza. I still order more than I should on Amazon, Wag, and Soap; but I actually have to get in my car and do shit to make most of my life happen. The only upside is that my dry cleaning expenses have gone way down now that I have my own washer and dryer. I can't even bother to set foot in a health club since everything else is downright miserable compared to Equinox and David Barton Gym. Never leave the city.
Totally agree with the "never leave the city" statement. I get so home-sick even when I am on vacation.
I think it's important to understand your sentence "targets young professionals with considerable income to expend on daily life" when talking about how this could potentially affect retail. While a seemingly larger demographic when all concentrated on WSO, I would imagine this represents a small fraction of the population, even in a town like NYC, and would thus keep businesses such as the one you mentioned from making any real impact on the profitability of powerhouses such as Walmart and Target, that service the overwhelming majority of the country that doesn't fall into that demographic.
Damn bro, you beat me to it. I wanted to comment on the exact same thing.
That's definitely true still. I thought that potentially this trend for similar online and delivery services could spread to other demographics and change the face of retail. Just a thought of a distance future...
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