I disagree with Marc Andreessen’s recent proclamation about the death of retail.
There are many great physical retail experiences like Zara (who has addressed the speed to market issue he says ecommerce is better at) and his Silicon Valley neighbor Apple – who has given brick retail a high benchmark to emulate.
This does not mean there isn’t trouble in physical retail stores. What he says about inventory and real estate costs is true and I’ve been saying for years that the store formats will have to get smaller (and many have – Target most recently with their Target City) and more focused and intimate. And there is definitely some work for many retailers to get better at the store experience.
Retail has been around for 100′s of years morphing time and again (think general store to specialty store, Main Street to mall). Before lean philosophy became widespread, retailers were using pop-up stores to iterate, test and learn. The report of their death is greatly exaggerated.