Omnichannel is Now; Retail’s Future is Beyond

The secret of future success is for retailers to “grow bigger than themselves,” Fernandes said Tuesday.

NEW YORK CITY—Is omnichannel the retail of the future? In the view of venture capitalist J. Skyler Fernandes, no—it’s retailing now. Speaking to a standing-room-only audience at ICSC’s New York Deal Making conference Tuesday, the managing director of Cleveland Avenue cited a recent Harvard Business School study showing that 70% of consumers buy in multiple channels, while just 7% buy only online and the remainder buy only at physical stores. In other words, omnichannel has become the norm.

Even as online and mobile shopping makes further inroads into brick-and-mortar traffic, Fernandes predicted the death of pure-play e-commerce. For one thing, he noted, “Mobile commerce is literally eating e-commerce’s lunch.” For another thing, given that a consumer may move across channels between ordering merchandise and taking possession of it, “The line is completely blurring between what is an online sale and an in-store sale.”