The Week of April 17th: 10 things eft's been reading

Two themes this week - #2) Innovate or die #2) Green

1. The Seattle Times outlines the double-edged sword of online retail. Perhaps more importantly it’s unforgiving nature – embrace it correctly and you can win many times over, don’t and you’re dead. ‘Seismic retail changes shorten the life cycle of many fashion brands’ [The Seattle Times]

2. One of the comments in this article was ‘one day soon this will be supreme too and you will know that you are old.’ This really underpins the point of theme #1 – you can be nailing it now, but that might not last. Here’s a Eulogy to the ‘Middle-Mall Brands’. ‘The Retail Slump Is Killing Middle-of-the-Mall Brands.’ [Hypebeast]

3. A topic we’ve seen surface again and again in today’s retail space is the need for marketing and supply chain to work together. Gen Z is rewriting how this is happening. ‘Instagram Killed the Retail Store.’ [Bloomberg]

4. ‘Amazon is destroying retail’ – It turns out the majority of consumers frequent other retail outlets. ‘Only Three Businesses Can Say At Least 84 Percent of U.S. Consumers Spent With Them in 2016’ [NPD]

5. [VIDEO] That being said, the level at which Amazon is taking ‘customer-centric’ seriously and have a grand vision for achieving this is staggering. Here’s a comprehensive lecture outlining how. ‘Scott Galloway - How Amazon is Dismantling Retail.’ [L2]

6. Predictions on the singularity continue. This time from the BBC. ‘Rise of the robots: What advances mean for workers.’ [BBC]

7. Infrastructure needs fixing in America. Wired writes a roadmap (pun definitely intended) for fixing US roads. ‘Trump’s $1 Trillion Bill Can’t Fix US Roads—These Ideas Could.’ [Wired]

8. Innovation doesn’t always work. Here are some of the best that didn’t. ‘From Colgate Lasagne to Crystal Pepsi: visit the Museum of Failure.’ [The Guardian]

9. Theme #2 – it looks like going green is increasingly strategic. ‘Apple vows to end mining and use only recycled materials.’ [Cnet]

10. Walmart is on the same path. ‘Walmart wants to cut 1 billion tons of emissions out of its supply chain.’ [FastCompany]

 

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