Hi-touch

Big box stores can’t keep up with the likes of amazing Amazon.

Both categories leverage the economy of scale to earn shares of the retail pie.

Both employ strong-arm tactics, logistic and logic of dis-intermediation.

Both cut down the touchpoint between buyer-seller to a bare minimum (Walmart greeter greets you so their cashiers don’t have to, if there were a human cashier at all- Amazon bought diapers.com and anticipatory shipping patent).

At the bottom feeder, we got Dollar Store which thrived during the Recession.

You want Customer Service, you will have to visit Nordstrom.

Even then, retired Retail people who wear yesterday’s tie will take the time to “chat” with you, maybe throw in a between-you-and-I store promo, just for the experience.

Welcome to the great Reshuffling, since the human card deck has now reached 7 billion and counting

Super Church, Super Computer (Intel is laying off 5,000 of its workers) and Super Statesman (Dennis Rodman).

Hi-tech needs Hi-touch.

As simply as that.

Network efficiency offers convenience, not connection.

People need people (the worst punishment a warden can use is total isolation).

In The Jewish Mind, we read about a story of a local Rabbi who despite zero feedback from a mean farmer, kept at saying Hi, trying to establish that human connection.

Turns out, when he ended up in line to be picked for the gas chamber, that detached farmer was the very Nazi officer who made the call “Left” or “Right”. That eye contact (culminating a life-time attempt at establishing human contact) saved the Rabbi’s dear life.

Big-box retailers will have to

– downsize

– increase its hi-touch in and out of store

– diversify with more service into the mix (Best Buy’s Geek Squad).

When Amazon goes for automation (drone delivery), it’s time for contrarian (people to people service).

There will always be room in the party of 7 billion. You may have to learn a foreign language (Walmart will soon learn to speak Vietnamese just as McDonald is doing) and relearn the lost art of human connection in an age of hyper connection.