A Completely Unscientific Poll

I ran a poll on Twitter asking readers what percentage of their annual apparel purchases are in stores? 86 brave souls responded.

• 21% said none of their apparel purchases were in a store.
• 36% said a third of their apparel purchases were in a store.
• 31% said two-thirds of their apparel purchases were in a store.
• 12% said all of their apparel purchases were in a store.

If you perform a weighted average of those metrics you land at 45%.

Again, completely unscientific. Highly biased. Not actionable.

Still interesting.

The transformation that is coming for retail will be breathtaking. Retail isn't going away. But individual stores are going to go away at levels we haven't previously considered. Remember, the amount of retail square footage in the United States is way ... way ... WAY more than it is in other countries. Which means the closures will be way ... way ... way more than in other countries.

Every transformation comes with opportunity. How you merchandise a store ... how you construct a store ... how you entertain in a store ... will all be very different in ten years, by necessity. The categories you choose to feature will be different than what you feature online. The sameness we've been taught across channels is going to go away, replaced by doing what is necessary to generate $$$ in a store. You simply cannot have the same experience in every channel anymore. Cannot. 

Look at sports for examples - is the NFL Sunday Ticket experience remotely similar to attending a game? That dichotomy is coming to retail / e-commerce.

Quite honestly, it's going to be an exciting transformation.