2640: Shop Different with Ron Johnson

So, and now here we are, and it's been a couple of years since Apple debuted the Genius Bar.

Do you see-

Yeah

... us moving more towards, back towards that? Or is it all virtual? Is retail done for?

No, I, I think that's one of the misconceptions in the world.

If you survey people, most people would think retail's dying.

The reality, it's never been stronger, you know? And what people didn't understand is up until 2000, the only way you could serve a customer was through a store.

You know, there were catalogs and people would buy through those, but fundamentally, people went to stores.

And the way retailers grew is they added a lot of stores.

And in 2000, the US had 10 times the square foot per capita of other countries in the world.

We were massively over-stored.

And so when the internet came out, you know, retailers, it took a while for them to embrace online shopping and create these omni-channel strategies where you could buy online or buy on- in the store or buy online, pick up in store.

Once they did that, they rationalized their fleets.

But today, 85% of all revenue is done through physical stores and their online components.

So only 15% is done with online-only people like Amazon or Shein, you know.

And all of the direct consumer companies are opening stores.

You know, you look at companies, great companies like Warby Parker, which invented online buying glasses.

Well, now they've got stores everywhere.

And that's true for all of the direct-to-consumer brands.

And so I think the, the, the winner in the retail wars wasn't stores or online, it was omni-channel.

And even, you know, Amazon's working hard to open stores.

They've tried forever.

They bought Whole Foods to learn about retail.

They've opened their, a variety of things.

Um, so we're in a world that's store and digital.