I'm with Hoffman, the Andreessen is crazy! Online is fantastic and a bleesing for when you're busy or want something much cheaper from o/s, but I'm a chic and I love physical shopping when I have the time! It's a sport for me or better than going to a day spa. That's what I think alot of these C level blokes just aren't getting re the transformation. They need more C level women to bring soem sense back re the convergance/transformation required. But the kicker for me is treat me like I'm special (if I spend enough) and I'll spend even more - that's the key!

Another great piece Jon….personally from my travels around the world I find the retail future is being shaped out of low hanging fruit, arrogance and relevance. Not physical versus on-line.
Let me explain in reverse order: ‘Relevance’ - simply put, some things lend themselves perfectly to on-line and that’s simply the way of the world – just like some retail experiences don’t lend themselves to self-service and some do. If what you’re selling perfectly suits an on-line world, move on, the people who were selling wooden tennis rackets have. ‘Arrogance’ - over the recent past, retailers have become incredibly arrogant, doing things that suited their bottom line and not their customers. Take for instance same-day home delivery (boy on a delivery bicycle etc) or free garment alterations or sales assistants that truly know what they were talking about…or even dare I say, experienced sales assistants on the sales floor empowered to make decisions, there to make the buying process a joy and pleasure. Each of these little emotional triggers have be cut away in the march for profits – we have been told it’s to keep prices lower but we as customers know it’s about bottom-line. ‘Low hanging fruit’ – retailers the world over have simply been asleep to the threat of pure-play operators. It’s a mistake to draw a straight line from the last 5-10 years and expect the trend to continue upwards and away from ‘retailers’. The successful retailers will ‘morph’ into multi-channel operators and then do it a good deal better than the individual parts are being done today. The brilliant Jon Stine from Cisco more accurately calls multi-channel: ‘channels of influence’. With each channel seamlessly influencing the purchase when the customer wants, how the customer wants.
So for what it’s worth my view is that the low hanging fruit has been picked, the pure play operators are looking for physical presence because they know that’s what their customers need. Successful retailers are eschewing anything that talks about ‘their’ agenda and instead, celebrating their customers agendas and for these operators there’s not a hint of arrogance anywhere in their culture. And finally, in true Darwinian style, successful retailers are ensuring they’re relentlessly relevant, adapting how they work and what they offer in order to survive, in order to succeed. Because to succeed, profits in this day-and-age must be an outcome not a purpose. 100 years ago, Gordon Selfridge opened the eponymous department store in London claiming it was a place for people to gather and if they saw something they liked, to buy it. Selfridges still leads the way, with Apple Retail executives rumoured to love it and be inspired by it! The reality is successful Retail will always move-on but some things will remain the same – given the choice, most people like to buy from people they like. And it’s easier to like someone you can see. martin-butler.com

More and more I believe it is coming down to how time is managed at a personal level. Time poor individuals are finding the online experience one that offers greater convinience in that you can generally order one day & receive the next as opposed to having to travel to & from the bricks and morter outlet and incur car, petrol & parking costs. In many circumstances the freight costs are more than offset with the time & money savings made.
The costs of maintaining a bricks and mortar retail store are now becoming prohibitive with margins being reduced from online competition, high occupancy costs within Australia as compared to other countries, carrying sufficient inventory, staffing costs and the impact of spiralling energy costs. It is entirely understandable why online retailers can offer consumers substantial savings when their operating costs can be greatly reduced.
When online retailers can offer their goods to Australian consumers with substantial savings and then in many cases offer the added incentive of free freight, it is not hard to see why consumers are abandoning bricks and mortar retail & retailers are abandoning bricks and mortar locations.

Hoffman is far closer to the mark - it's all about convergence. In fact, I can't help but feel that someone as smart as Andreessen making such outrageous statements is nothing more than a veiled attempt at trolling to spark a discussion.
James - sounds like you've been shopping on the wrong sites. I have the opposite experience, although what you described is consistent with my bi-monthly Westfield experience :)

Your last question is key. In similar vein, why do so many online/ecommerce brands promote themselves in traditional media?

Sometimes the digital world forgets we're human, hard wired to understand our world through our senses. How many online experiences get you excited in the way that beautifully executed retail (or any other) theatre can? The digital industry has done a magnificent job of selling its strengths, building super-effectively on the novelty and convenience factors of online, but try as it might it can't change our basic human drivers....and many of them lie in reality not in a screen of any kind.

Having said that I 100% agree that software can have - is having - a huge impact on the bricks and mortar shopping experience. Customer-facing technologies can really help deliver the excitement of experience.

It depends who is sponsoring the talker and how much they can afford to manipulate you to believe in what they say. Online shopping is not a great new experience but a time consuming, boring, overrated, logistic nightmare. The only people who will make money are the freight companies, the Post Office, web designers, the banks (how many of you are now getting text messages from your bank to purchase on line to receive some kind of benefit? we all know the only way we can pay online is by using our “credit card”) and overseas wholesalers who need to off load their old stock! As I look back we all shopped because we needed too; now we expected to shop need or not! A Throw way society is also ruining our environment but nobody wants to put the two together. Look now at some of the big companies of the Worlds they only want staff to stay for two years then to move on – throw away staff – then they don’t need to pay them long service or give pay rises or promotions. And we all think we are getting smarter!