The Future of Retail is Offline
by Highsnobiety
Nice little article with input from
founder Jonah Weiner, Hannah Rieke and Margaret Austin, Paul-Anthony Smith and Christopher Green, and Emily Dawn Long taps into something we write about here - that curious moment when everyone's convinced the future is digital, yet the smartest brands are going physical.Whilst half the retail world's obsessing over conversion rates, there's a quiet movement happening in actual shops with actual people. It's not nostalgia - it's cold business sense wrapped in warm human interaction, even 3rd and 4th spaces!
The piece captures what we've been saying for ages: the pendulum's swinging back towards experiences you can't replicate through a screen. When Emily talks about learning from customers face-to-face, she's describing something no algorithm can match - that split-second when someone's expression tells you whether they'll actually wear that jumper or let it gather dust.
What's clever is how these brands aren't treating physical retail as some grudging concession to the analogue world. They're making it the main event. In a world where anyone can bang out a Shopify site, having an actual place where people can touch, feel, and chat about your stuff and connect directly with makers and desginers.
See Highsnob link
Inspiration by Mark