Co-authored with David Bell and Toni Moreno.
Legacy offline stores and next-generation online retailers are each finding their way to a new kind of shopping experience: the showroom. Offline demise and offline renaissance is the paradox of new retail writ large. Swiss multinational financial services company Credit Suisse projects that by the time the numbers are in, more than 8,500 stores in the United States will have closed in 2017. Consensus estimates predict that 25% of all shopping malls will shrink or close in the near future. At the same time, online-first brands from suitcase retailer Away to eyewear maker Warby Parker are successfully opening pop-ups, showrooms, and full-blown stores. Not to be outdone, Amazon.com, the granddaddy of online-first, has opened bookstores and is rumored to be planning to open 2,000 Amazon Fresh grocery stores over the next 10 years. The net result: Offline is dead and dying, yet it is also alive and thriving.
