Reinventing Retail

Chapter 6

Rule 6: If a product or process can be dis-intermediated or simplified, it will be

As we discovered with our New Normal rule about location, transaction costs matter a lot. When they are high, we tend not to shop around all that much and don’t look for too many competitive quotes. So the way that businesses distribute their products, ensuring that we trip over them often, is a big driver of profitability.

It is arguable, in fact, that one of the biggest changes that the internet, social media and the always-on mobile economy have created is that they have effectively reduced the difficulty, and therefore the time and money cost of doing things. We can gather information at a click of a button, can shop without leaving the house ...