I think retail can be improved, and even small improvements can have large impacts because of the sheer size of the market: US retail sales are in the $5 trillion range yearly, mostly in brick and mortar.
Specific problems:
1. Why is brick and mortar still so popular, and can any pain points with e-commerce be fixed?
2. E-commerce doesn't work well on cheap items where shipping cost is prohibitive. Different companies have tried to solve this in various ways, with Prime (losing money on cheaper sales in hopes they can reduce logistics cost and drive larger sales) or Jet (directly giving shipping savings for ordering multiple items at once). It will be difficult to compete with Prime, but there has to be an angle that works, Jet found one.
3. Simpler price comparison. I tried to build the feature I thought should exist at https://icanpriceit.com/ as a side project, but didn't spend the time to properly launch it. I hope some startup succeeds in that space, I've been watching https://wikibuy.com/ which is quite similar.
I think there's plenty of room to build the next Amazon or eBay. The fees they charge third party sellers have been going up over time, if a marketplace was willing to accept lower fees at first it could help early growth.
> 1. Why is brick and mortar still so popular, and can any pain points with e-commerce be fixed?
One thing I much prefer B&M shopping for is clothing. Sizing is so wildly variable across brands, and clothing such a tactile thing, that I cannot completely get away from physical storefronts.
If they did that, they'd have too many sizes. Just look at jeans: most brands carry 100 or so "sizes", not including variations (tight, slim, regular, loose, baggy, tapered, straight, etc). With women, it's even worse because their body types are even more varied. It's easy to end up with 1000+ variations if a store tries to cater to everyone.
Instead brands cater to certain demographics and their sizes are relative to the body types they try to attract. It's unlikely that a woman who regularly buys from NY&Company would expect something at Lane Bryant to fit them.
In Europe they mostly have, but it's still so variable and subjective. For one thing, people are very different sizes, based on your market. I mean, I'm a "large" here (in Europe) but a "medium" in America, presumably because the average American is considerably fatter than a European of similar height.
And tailoring/fashion add another layer of subjectivity. A pair of size 34 jeans are much tighter in Europe than the US, because that's de moda. And there's considerable variation between brands, depending on how they want you to look when you wear their stuff.
In the end, there's just no getting away from the fact that you'll need to try clothes on if you want a good fit.
In what way would they benefit from it? In general, they'd rather encourage ignorance-based brand loyalty. In addition, this way brands can compete on vanity sizing.
"I'm a 12 in Brand X, but an 8 in Brand Y! I'll take Y!"
Specific problems:
1. Why is brick and mortar still so popular, and can any pain points with e-commerce be fixed?
2. E-commerce doesn't work well on cheap items where shipping cost is prohibitive. Different companies have tried to solve this in various ways, with Prime (losing money on cheaper sales in hopes they can reduce logistics cost and drive larger sales) or Jet (directly giving shipping savings for ordering multiple items at once). It will be difficult to compete with Prime, but there has to be an angle that works, Jet found one.
3. Simpler price comparison. I tried to build the feature I thought should exist at https://icanpriceit.com/ as a side project, but didn't spend the time to properly launch it. I hope some startup succeeds in that space, I've been watching https://wikibuy.com/ which is quite similar.
I think there's plenty of room to build the next Amazon or eBay. The fees they charge third party sellers have been going up over time, if a marketplace was willing to accept lower fees at first it could help early growth.