Where is the Retail Revolution Heading Next?

What’s the Big Idea?

The online retail revolution has produced spectacular success stories like Groupon and Gilt Groupe. Adam Bryant of The New York Times interviews Susan Lyne, CEO of Gilt Groupe, about where the industry is heading in the future. In this Big Think interview, Lyne identifies three key trends, as follows:

Curation

According to Lyne, consumers can be paralyzed by having too many choices. Companies like Gilt focus on “filtering out the noise” and paring down the choices

The convergence of editorial and commerce

The print world has always been able to inspire people and give them ideas, but according to Lyne “they could never allow you to make that last piece of it happen which was the commerce part.” Companies like Gilt have changed that in a major way, where “content in the commerce flow can actually help people to make a decision,” she says.

Game Dynamics

The game of shopping is fun to play if customers can be moved from one level to the next in the shopping experience. In other words, Lyne says, “What good gamers do is to design a flow that takes you from Point A to Point B and then from Point B to Point C.”