As the middle continues to collapse—and many well established retailers struggle to move from boring to remarkable—brands must continually seek new ways to become unique, more intensely relevant and truly memorable. One strategy that seems to be picking up steam involves so-called digitally native brands creating alliances with much larger legacy retail companies. Earlier this month, as … Continue reading Strange bedfellows? Legacy retailer and disruptive brand partnerships are on the rise.
Tag: Bonobos
Of course the obvious answer is "well, that depends." As the intersection of economic feasibility and consumers' willingness to adopt new technology hit a tipping point, for retailers that had invested big bucks in the brick-and-mortar distribution of music, books and games, the answer changed rather dramatically. Today's retail apocalypse narrative is nonsense. But it wasn't so long … Continue reading Physical stores: Assets or liabilities?
It may make for intriguing headlines, but physical retail is clearly not dead. Far from it, in fact. But, to be sure, boring, undifferentiated, irrelevant and unremarkable stores are most definitely dead, dying or moving perilously close to the edge of the precipice. While retail is going through vast disruption causing many stores to close — and quite a few … Continue reading Physical retail is not dead. Boring retail is.
Since the Whole Foods deal, more than a few industry analysts and pundits have weighed in on which retailers might be on Amazon's shopping list. Various theories underpin the speculation. Some say Jeff Bezos wants to go deeper in certain categories, so Lululemon or Warby Parker get mentioned. Foursquare (is that still a thing?) crafted its own … Continue reading Here’s who Amazon could buy next, and why it probably won’t be Nordstrom
As much attention as both the growth and disruptive nature of e-commerce receives, few observers seem realize that often the economics of selling online are terrible (what I often refer to as "the inconvenient truth about e-commerce"). The fact is only a handful of venture capital funded "pure-plays" have (or will ever) make money and most are … Continue reading Unsustainable Customer Acquisition Costs Make Much Of Ecommerce Profit Proof