The future of retail: data sharing and the shopping experience

Jo Bowman

Physical retail is under pressure from online shopping and only the best will survive according to the CEO of Hudson's Bay Company.

A Canadian business that is fast rolling out big new stores in an era of growing e-commerce says physical retail isn't dying, but shops have to be truly amazing both online and offline if they're to survive.

"You've all seen the headlines: retail apocalypse, retail meltdown, the death of retail. It's enough to give a retailer a need for therapy," said Jerry Storch, CEO of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), North America's oldest company. "What is going on?" he asked the Shoptalk Europe conference (Copenhagen, October 2017).

His assessment was that retail space is overbuilt, especially in the US, where...

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