I read an interesting peace in the news over the weekend, overall footfall is down 10% for shops, but out of town retail parks are actually showing an increase, meaning that the traditional high street is taking the biggest hits.
That really doesn't surprise me, in the UK highstreets are often dirty, poorly maintained and have congestion and high parking charges, so the advantage of buying cheaper online is clear.
Of course there is only so far the transtion to online can go, clothes shopping for example is an area where I don't know what I want and need to physcially see and try things on to help me select. Maybe AI could do that better for me? It would be interesting to see how that would work, but there are no signs of that at the moment.
Many years ago I thought if I had all my body dimenstions mapped out then I could order perfect clothes made to measure using that data, but its another concept that never seems to have gotten traction, but with the print to order online services I can't see why made to order can't florish. I guess it is too much hassle to get the measurements or to keep them up to date.
Anyway I see an equilibrium being reached where online reaches its ideal % then retail online and offline just grow by the same percentages, at what point that time is reach is uncertain, there is still a long way to go and grow for online I suspect.
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