Web logs

Much as the self-service format (Retail 2.0) largely killed off the full-service model (Retail 1.0), etailing(3.0) is killing off self-service (Retail 3.0). In category after category the internet format — Retail 3.0 — has accounted for essentially all of the growth over the last decade, if not more. Scarcely a single new book store has opened since about 1998 in US. In computers and electronics, the internet has captured more than 40% of sales and incumbent stores are so vulnerable to smart-phone-based comparison shopping that they are rapidly becoming nothing more than showrooms for internet-only retailers.

Zappos's online-only retail format is so efficient that it can offer very competitive prices, free shipping and free returns of as many shoes as you like, at a stroke removing the biggest problem with online apparel shopping: "Does it fit?" Something that Flipkart is emulating back home

If the USP ruled earlier, brands now need to create movements, experiences and engagement with the consumer.

Of the world’s top four owners of airliners, two are lessors: GECAS, with 1,732 planes, and ILFC, with 1,031, soar miles above Delta (800) and American Airlines (775). Airlines lack cash to finance their big plans for fleet renewal, and they cannot borrow cheaply to buy new planes. Deals in which airlines sell part of their existing fleet to a lessor and rent it back are becoming more common Aviation is becoming more like the hotel business: one type of firm specialises in owning the assets, while another operates them. But there is an important difference: a hotel owner cannot easily seize his premises back from a hotelier who skips the rent Renting makes sense for small, young airlines that lack capital, for larger airlines trying out a new line of business for which they need different planes, or when manufacturers’ order books are full and the only way to get a plane is to rent it. But big airlines are better off buying planes and keeping them for their full lifespan of 30 year...

The Euro crisis is getting out of control. As long as Germany and France thinks that there is an awful lot to be gained by preserving the euro, they will only be prolonging the crisis. Frankly, If there was a neat solution to the problem that doesnt involve breaking up of the euro, it would have been devised and implemented. It is very apparent that the euro experiment has failed and must be aborted right away. Countries as diverse as Italy and Germany cannot have the same currency. Even a fiscal union couldnt have averted the inevitable breakup. It could have only delayed the crisis.

India's organized retail is estimated at $28 billion with around 7% penetration but is expected to grow to 21% and become a $260 billion business over the next decade, says a recent report by Boston Consulting Group. What modern retail offers to companies experimenting with new categories is the chance to educate customers which was not the case with a general trade store. Category creation and market development starts with modern trade but as more consumers start consuming this category, they penetrate into other channels. Market development for new categories takes time so brand wars for leadership and consumer franchise will be fought on the modern retail platform. A new brand can overnight compete with established companies by tying up with few retailers in these categories

The work of winner of 2011's economics Nobel prize, Christopher Sims  is empirical and, therefore, directly useful to policymakers. He  has used a powerful but relatively simple analytical tool, called vector autoregression, to explain why different things like income and inflation take different periods of time to respond to a change in, say, interest rates.  His work establishes that the effect of a rate hike on the GDP is immediate and causes a contraction; inflation takes longer to respond and starts cooling only after five or six quarters. The research has been so influential that most central banks worldwide structure their policies with his results built into them.