Customer-Centered Design: A New Approach to Web Usability

The Dynamic Retail Future—Phil Lauria

The retail environment today is more dynamic than it's ever been. It's driven by store formats that emerged in the past 10 to 15 years but also by the consolidation of retailers. There has been a great deal of channel blurring. The differences among a club store, a grocery store, and a mass merchant are less clear in the mind of the consumer than ever before. There's a reasonable sense of overlap on a day-to-day basis because there is product overlap.

Initially, a club store like Costco had a limited number of SKUs. Today, there are lots of offerings including custom mattresses, diamond rings, high-end faucets, and an entire array of top-end merchandise. But they're slicing meat as well. They are playing ...