The pandemic is forcing retailers to finally define just what their stores are for.
E-commerce is not a great store
As beleaguered as brick and mortar is, retail can’t thrive without it, in part because e-commerce remains a lackluster and inefficient way to shop for nonessential goods, and a poor conductor of impulse-buying, according to Credit Suisse analyst Michael Binetti.
“Eighty percent of people still set aside time to get in a car and go to a store to purchase something that they could have gotten online,” Binetti said in a May 14 discussion with the firm’s chief U.S. equity strategist, Jonathan Golub. “I think retail in the age of e-commerce is a game of starting points.”