The Retail Apocalypse And The Urgent Quest For Remarkable

Some love the “retail apocalypse” narrative. It’s great clickbait, makes for captivating keynote speeches and gives consultants a hook to peddle complicated strategic frameworks. Alas, it’s mostly nonsense. Physical retail is definitely different, but it’s far from dead. The fact is plenty of new stores are opening, many traditional retailers and — I hope you are sitting down — even quite a few malls are doing great. Brick-and-mortar retail sales are likely to be up this year, just as they were last year. Some retailers love hearing this alternative narrative because they think it means they will be okay, that they don’t have to change, that there is some storm they just have to ride out. Unfortunately, that is not only nonsense, it is dangerous nonsense. While physical retail is not dead, virtually every aspect of retail is changing dramatically, as this excellent piece by Doug Stephens points out. While I believe Doug overstates a few things, his underlying premise is on the money. Almost everything has to change and the key thing to understand is that the future of retail will not evenly distributed. Stated simply: yes, some brands will do well. But many others will struggle mightily, others will be eviscerated and quite a few are dead already, they just don’t know it. Physical retail is not going away but unremarkable retail is getting hammered. The brands that relied on good enough are learning the hard way that good enough no longer is. Read more at Forbes.