Bricks, Clicks, and the Future of Shopping

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2018

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The 'retail apocalypse' is upon us, they say. In the United States, 2017 saw emptied malls, shuttered department stores, and once-iconic brands falling into bankruptcy. Yet retail spending continues to grow, in strange new directions that could have significant effects. What will shopping look like in the future? How will these changes reverberate throughout the country? Atlantic editor Gillian White joins our hosts to discuss. If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey. Links - “The 4 Reasons Why 2017 Is a Tipping Point for Retail” (Derek Thompson, November 16, 2017) - “All the Ways Retail’s Decline Could Hurt America’s Towns” (Alana Semuels, May 2017) - “The Future of Retail Is Stores That Aren’t Stores” (Joe Pinsker, September 14, 2017) - “How to Rebuild After the Retail Apocalypse” (Richard Florida, December 23, 2017) - “How Dollar General Became Rural America’s Store of Choice” (Sarah Nassauer, Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2017) - Futureface (Alex Wagner, 2018) - “The Appropriate Weight of Grief” (Michael Zadoorian, ART + marketing, May 6, 2016) - “The Lesson of the Moth” (Don Marquis) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Commerce, stores on Main Street, the things we buy and sell, hanging out at the mall, these are central to the American idea.
0:08.5	But e-commerce is dramatically changing the world of retail and
0:13.0	America as well.
0:14.0	When we're buying things on our phones,
0:17.0	what will we do in our stores?
0:20.0	This is Radio Atlantic. Hi, I'm Matt Thompson, Executive Editor of The Atlantic, and with me in the studio, is this the first time?
0:41.0	Is it possible?
0:42.0	Both of my esteemed co-hosts all together here in DC.
0:46.4	First, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.
0:49.5	Hi Jeff.
0:50.2	So much steam, huh?
0:51.5	I was just gonna say it's a steam row. It's still your line. It's totally different.
0:56.3	You guys, it's so swanky down here.
0:58.4	Atlantic, radio Atlantic listeners know that when they say glass enclosed nerve center, that is not hyperbolic.
1:07.6	This feels like the effin future.
1:11.0	The voice you hear is the voice of our other esteemed colleague
1:16.2	Alex Wagner. Greetings and salutations. Greetings and salutations to you as well.
1:22.2	We are joined in studio today by an editor on the
1:25.9	Atlantic's business team Jillian White. Hello Jillian.
1:29.2	Hi Jillian. So it's January. We have just finished the busiest retail season of the year and we had the Atlantic as you may know talk a lot about this thing we call the American idea
1:46.3	Intrinsic to the American idea often implicit in it is retail is the notion the American dream the idea of a storefront of Main Street USA people
1:56.8	walking into a store and buying things and walking out of them.
	...

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