Mickey Drexler And The De-Schlepping Of Retail

Drexler has been mostly off the radar since stepping down from J. Crew, yet he re-emerged in typical style at last week’s Annual Retail Forum/Retail Radicals event organized by the Columbia Business School and The Robin Report. Among his many provocative comments, the one that captured my attention was what he referred to as the de-schlepping of retail. “Why schlep paper towels from the supermarket? Why schlep dog food? Why schlep a lot of things?” he asked. And he’s right. Of course lugging heavy and/or bulky items home from a store has always been a hassle, particularly if you take public transportation or live in an apartment. The more powerful change is the number of companies that have emerged to address this pain point, including Boxed, Jet and Amazon. Read more at Forbes.