FUTURE OF RETAIL: Navigating the Amazon at NRF
Once again, went to the National Retail Federation Conference and Convention.
Nineteen in a row.
Walked the floor.
With a few exceptions, and the ubiquity of AI solutions and pseudo-solutions, it could have been 2003. Or 2010.
The same stale cliches (Transforming Retail). And many of the same tired answers.
Which is a shame.
Because the central strategic question of retail has changed.
For 2019 and going forward, it’s this:
How will you navigate the Amazon?
From personal conversation, it’s clear that the best retailers have their paddles in hand. Some even have twin 300 horsepower outboards behind.
Others in the Javits Center, including tech firms?
Not sure they even realize that they’re up the creek.
Was chatting recently with good friends Venu Gopalakrishnan and Mani Subramanian of Litmus 7, the superbly qualified retail technology/services firm.
The theme, over a good dish of Thai: you can’t navigate this Amazon with incremental process or technology improvement.
Because Amazon has redefined – irrevocably – the value proposition of consumption.
The reason why you, the consumer, choose A over B.
Which is the key to navigating this Amazon.
Or, finding yourself asleep with the fishes. Which, in this case, might be piranhas.
Nibble, nibble, nibble. Ouch.
Your navigation must start with that value proposition of consumption. Which for Amazon starts with their brilliant combination of recommendations and reviews and marketplaces and transparent pricing and Prime and ever-faster delivery and Prime and Prime and Prime.
Oh, and keep in mind they’re also commoditizing entire categories of products. (Duracell batteries, anyone?).
And, with Alexa, they sit right next to you, a mere one word away. In your home, in your car, in your appliances.
And,
They happen to dominate the place where shopping begins. It’s not just that US e-commerce revenues will grow 15.1 percent this year, or account for nearly 11 percent of all dollar sales. It’s that more than half -- 54 percent, according to Statista -- of all 2019 US retail revenues will be directly influenced by the internet. And more than 50 percent of all internet product searches start on Amazon.com.
In 2019, how will you navigate the Amazon?
Do you have a paddle in hand?
Let’s talk.
#litmus7, #OpenVoiceNetwork, #JonBird