Gone are the days of discovering a new musical artist on a listening station at Tower Records; the days of going to the Mom and Pop video store on a Friday night with the kids and simply browsing for a good movie is all but gone, too. Browsing culture afforded the opportunity for discovery. It was an act of fun regardless of a consumerist outcome.
It's hard for us in our stores to be a leader in technology.
Sephora's business is really smart and clever - I'm all for anything that gets people up and out and into the social experience of shopping.
I quickly realized that shopping on Amazon had made the idea of parking my car and going into a store feel like an outrageous imposition on my time and good nature.
Ironically, I think some of the inspiration around Stitch Fix is really what was great about stores in the heyday of stores.
Even if I am predisposed to shop online, I see bricks and mortar as part of marketing.
Over many generations, fortunes in the business world were made through buying and selling products in physical stores. Internet fortunes have been made buying and selling products online.
There was no social media. There's not as many TV shows and magazines and things. Before you would release a single and you would go to HMV and do a signing and a performance, they don't even have HMV anymore.
When I look for new books, I often struggle to find things that challenge and entertain me. This has caused me to spend a number of cycles thinking about where I can get the serendipitous book discovery experience that we had in physical book stores.
I get up in the morning, do my e-mail, I check my e-mails all day. I'll go online and I'll buy my books at Amazon.com, but I don't want to buy all of them because I want to go to Duttons and I want to buy books from another human being.
Brick and mortar stores will ultimately mark down between 50 to 60% of its merchandise because they don't know who's walking in the door on any day, so they lose control.
Experience is going to be even more important than it used to be - people will want to live something when they are in our stores, otherwise they'll just buy on their phones.
As I've often said, you can shop online and find whatever you're looking for, but bookstores are where you find what you weren't looking for.
