Direct-to-consumer companies bypass traditional retailers via online stores
economist.com
economist.com
That $60 shirt you make that is getting sold in a store like Neiman Marcus or Macy's, you're getting $12.75 for it as the maker. Stores charge obscenely for their distribution access (and for the most part they have to, their costs are very high; a higher margin store like Macy's, in good times, only has a 6% net income margin).
Ten years from now the direct to consumer segment is going to be massive. The online platforms that can generate sales referrals (distribution), are going to become the new margin-eating department stores, the middlemen providing access to the buyers. That's eg: Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, et al. There will be dozens of more specialized players as well. Right now businesses are commonly selling (leads &or transacting) across two dozen platforms (from eBay to craigslist, from YouTube to Poshmark, from Instagram to Etsy or Shopify), ten years from now that'll be four or five dozen. Sometimes you'll get lucky and get quasi-free distribution on them virally; most of the time you'll have to pay up for reliable distribution. There will be the occasional rare direct to consumer success story that has truly crazy margins because they spread entirely virally, they'll be the magic unicorn story that gets frequently written up as the trend gets larger and larger.
First movers will probably have some brands awareness advantage for a lower CaC cost, but I question brand loyalty in DTC product lines without seeing numbers.
What I'm curious about is where the breakeven point is regarding tradeoffs with the benefits of selling to a retail chain.
Bookstores are a funny one: I miss the days when there were 7 bookshops in Palo Alto an still refuse to buy books from Amazon. But in other places books are sold sealed in shrink wrap, I see no reason to go to a physical shop rather than buying online.
Of course, it’s not like direct sales are a new thing. Mail order business has been around as long as the mail.
I should add that my size is the most common, hence often sold out first.
Though I've made purchases from these companies regularly, I probably step inside the physical stores no more than once every six months.
Knock em down, build more smaller residential neighborhoods, and maybe those of us under 40 can begin setting down roots, buying affordable homes, starting families.
(As for actually going into the stores, I do rather often mostly because ordering online has turned into such a mess for me. Having the stores "stacked" like that makes them a lot more convenient to manage.)
A horse defecates 4 to 13 times per day; a 1000 pound horse produces 9 tons per year.
https://99percentinvisible.org/article/cities-paved-dung-urb...
'Per one observer at the time, the streets were “literally carpeted with a warm, brown matting . . . smelling to heaven.” So-called “crossing sweepers” would offer their services to pedestrians, clearing out paths for walking, but when it rained, the streets turned to muck. And when it was dry, wind whipped up the manure dust and choked the citizenry.'
On the whole, I'd rather have electric bikes and cars.
Quite a few things are the better choice for the planet and a worse choice for us, so we're going to ensure that they don't happen.
George Carlin had it right. There's nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine and will be fine no matter how much we meddle with it. It gets to live on a geological timescale...it was here long before us and will be here long after we're gone. Rising CO2 in the atmosphere, pollution, rising seas and all that won't kill the planet. Some species will die, new species will evolve and the earth will keep supporting life just as it has for millions of years.
What "save the planet" means is preserve an environment that's best for the homo sapiens and other species we care about. So killing off all homo sapiens isn't really better for the planet. It might be better for the survivors if a good chunk of the population died out or even if we stopped growing the population of humans, but it's arrogant to think that environmentalism is acting in the planet's best interests. Environmentalism is just acting in the best interests of our species instead of the best interests of individuals.
With technology I forsee a future were people directly order from the factory line. But today we already see the rise of Chinese websites undercutting Western webshops. And in my own country it is quite popular to buy mobile phones straight from Samsung and others bypassing telecom operators and retail.
The internet has really slaughtered traditional retail space.
Of course it is.