Why can’t eCommerce and brick-and-mortar just get along? Retail pundits have created a whole lexicon for when they sometimes do — omnichannel, online-to-offline, click-and-collect — but one of the darlings of the eCommerce age just poked a big hole in the theory that online and physical sales shouldn’t and can’t coexist.
The co-CEOs of eyewear retailer Warby Parker — Dave Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal — were recent guests on Re/code’s podcast, “Re/code Decode,” and when the conversation turned to focus on why the two decided to take its already profitable online operation into the physical realm, the co-CEOs were quick to answer that Warby Parker was never an online-only brand. It just started that way.
“We can’t be married to a particular mode of selling,” Blumenthal told Re/code. “We were never so dogmatic to say, ‘No bricks and mortar, ever!’”
Gilboa noted that while retailers might have no choice but to carry with them into the age of digital commerce the legacy of a time when they could only sell in stores, consumers have adapted far beyond that outdated paradigm. If a shopper finds a brand that he or she likes, then Gilboa is confident that its only a matter of time before that consumer seeks the relevant company out in any way that’s convenient for their shopping habits — not based on an artificial divide created by retail pundits.
Blumenthal also added that consumers are going to keep changing with the technology that’s available and retailers better change with it.
“ECommerce was desktop commerce and then mobile commerce,” Blumenthal said. “We know, in a couple years, it’s not going to be just mobile. It might be VR.”
And if it is, retailers will be better served getting a presence on the platform instead of thinking up pithy names for it, like virtual commerce or VRetail — although either of those would work.
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