Ikea is the example I often cite. I am in the UK. Many of their locations are adjacent to motorways, they literally have a warehouse in the store, and all they

Ikea is the example I often cite. I am in the UK. Many of their locations are adjacent to motorways, they literally have a warehouse in the store, and all they need to add is a fulfilment network (which, btw, they already have just not large enough to meet demand). Admittedly, the stuff they carry is pretty heavy/expensive...but they are 99% of the way there. Instead, you go on their website, a lot of the stuff on there doesn't work properly, and delivery times are a month plus. It is deliberate. Wayfair is dropshipping stuff from China, and managing to compete with them...how? It makes no sense. Ikea have a position that no competitor could actually replicate without losing billions of pounds, and they are getting beaten by a company which doesn't manufacture goods, owns one or two warehouses, and doesn't fulfil orders...how? Literally, Wayfair just have a bunch of websites (now consolidated) with good SEO...and Ikea are just handing them market share. And yes, "executive profit" is the key point. Executive comp is set by comp committees who have no clue, and benchmark off whatever they the company is already doing/last year's numbers. Why do execs care if the company blows up in five years through malinvestment? They will have cashed out their options by then and will be lighting their cigars with fifty pound notes. Imo, executive comp structure is 95% to do with why this has happened (in my experience, exec comp in physical retail is structured very poorly across the board, it incentivizes poor ROIC growth).