McKinsey & Co.’s ‘Store Of The Future’ Yields Retailing Insights In Real-Time

McKinsey & Co., the global consulting giant with $10 billion in annual revenue, opened a pop-up luxury goods store this fall in the Mall of America in Minneapolis. It’s a laboratory where the firm’s clients are studying consumer behavior and experimenting with the digital tools that will define the future of retail. McKinsey’s research approach is novel and, after just two months in operation, has produced some surprises, uncovered tantalizing clues to retailing’s future, and confirmed what we’ve been saying this year—that the retail apocalypse is a myth and online commerce is not a mortal threat to bricks and mortar. Quite the opposite, in fact. In a recent interview, McKinsey partner Praveen Adhi told me that one of the early findings is that consumers express more interest in discovering products that appeal to them and having a personalized shopping experience than they do in the relative seamlessness of checkout. Read more at Forbes.