The Amazing Evolution of the Retail World

After a long talk about how we were going to handle the post-COVID work environment in our Columbus HQ, it dawned on us that office culture, cooler talk, cubicles, conference rooms, Dilbert jokes, corner offices, offices period… were either over or had completely changed. All of it. Kicked to the side of the laser beam highway that’s blazing through this frantic century, just like phones with cords, newspapers, and cooking dinner. Offices got sent into the vernacular of the “can you believe we used to…” world. In other words, offices, as we once knew them (like two years ago), are toast. Or at the very least, a totally new kind of toast. Stunning.

But wait, it also occurred to us that offices weren’t the only thing that’s changing so rapidly that our grand kids will laugh when we tell stories of the good old days. How about cars (vs EV’s)? Shopping centers (vs e-com)? Movie Theaters (vs streaming)? Fast Fashion (vs re-sale)? Dine-in (vs delivery)? Cabs (vs Uber)? Business Travel (vs Zoom calls)? Advertising (vs influencers)? Boomers (vs Z)? All those changes before we even start to think about what’s happening to baseball umpires (v robots)!! Yes, it’s the end of just about everything. 1995 seems like 150 years ago.

If you thought about it for a while, you might have a panic attack. So don’t. But do think about this; we’ve also adapted quickly to the beginning of all the aforementioned new everything. Humans are moving on without even trying. But not quite everything is in that stew. From what we’re seeing in our research, humans still love stores. At least some of them, some of the time, and in some of the places. So, not so fast, “New World”, let’s not throw stores under the self-driving bus just yet.

Download the full POV below