3 ms·

"it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you."

"it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you." THAT is retail. The craptastic experiment we see these days, online and in meatspace are scams masquerading as retail. I miss Sears.

yourapostasy 5y ago
The challenge has been to monetize that experience. I wonder if either an explicit membership model to access advice or a sales advice Uber service that rates both sales person and customer to assist with improving sales transaction communication, can be one part of a solution to preserve the immediacy of brick and mortar. I doubt it; there is likely more value to identifying those items that consumers will buy without waiting for delivery, more emergency-type purchases, marking them up to the limit, abandoning all other products to online ordering, and optimize brick and mortar floor space to cater exclusively to those need-right-now purchases. And even that might not last long. Warehouse demand is exploding across the world right now. We're in the midst of a massive commerce transformation where there are a lot of giants racing to establish JIT delivery footprints in the most high-margin MSA's containing 80% of every nation's population. It won't be long before we're in a Stephenson'ian Snow Crash-esque world where we're getting an ML-computed 80% of goods everyone orders within 30 minutes, 15% of goods in 4 hours, 4% of goods in a day, and the remaining 1% in five days. Once that happens, I would be surprised to see supermarkets or even small groceries outside of very niche segments like ethnic and farmer's markets, or hyper niche high-end shops like butchers specializing in rare quality cuts, exist in brick and mortar form, unless you go to where 20% of the population lives in low-density areas not served by these logistical nets.

yourapostasy 5y ago

The challenge has been to monetize that experience. I wonder if either an explicit membership model to access advice or a sales advice Uber service that rates both sales person and customer to assist with improving sales transaction communication, can be one part of a solution to preserve the immediacy of brick and mortar. I doubt it; there is likely more value to identifying those items that consumers will buy without waiting for delivery, more emergency-type purchases, marking them up to the limit, abandoning all other products to online ordering, and optimize brick and mortar floor space to cater exclusively to those need-right-now purchases. And even that might not last long. Warehouse demand is exploding across the world right now. We're in the midst of a massive commerce transformation where there are a lot of giants racing to establish JIT delivery footprints in the most high-margin MSA's containing 80% of every nation's population. It won't be long before we're in a Stephenson'ian Snow Crash-esque world where we're getting an ML-computed 80% of goods everyone orders within 30 minutes, 15% of goods in 4 hours, 4% of goods in a day, and the remaining 1% in five days. Once that happens, I would be surprised to see supermarkets or even small groceries outside of very niche segments like ethnic and farmer's markets, or hyper niche high-end shops like butchers specializing in rare quality cuts, exist in brick and mortar form, unless you go to where 20% of the population lives in low-density areas not served by these logistical nets.