Fixing Retail

When we read about fixing retail, the ideas and tactics have merit. You'll read about "entertainment" and you'll read about "the customer experience". Both are important, no doubt about it.

Neither solve any of at least five structural problems with retail.

• Shifting traffic that used to go into stores instead to the e-commerce channel.
• Amazon.
• Loss of ecosystem traffic via store closures and competitive challenges that result in less traffic in shopping centers.
• Boring merchandise. Who wants to buy a pair of Dockers when you can just go to Costco and buy something similar for 1/3rd the price along with 64oz of nacho cheese?
• Loss Gross Margins. Remember, gross margins fund EVERYTHING. Everything.

You have to solve each problem (above) if you want to fix retail. "Entertainment" and the "Customer Experience" barely solve one of the five problems.

If you are a retail expert (odds are you are or you wouldn't be reading this), tell me how you are going to simultaneously solve each of the five problems above?

I'll wait here for your solution ... go!