The future of retail: The need for a new trust architecture

Deloitte ran a series of breakfasts recently for the retail community, and they kindly asked C4tE to participate. My contribution, which you can find at Scribd or embedded below, sprang out of our recent report The Future of Exchanging Value: Cryptocurrencies and the trust economy(FoEV) when, during a chance conversation, Robbie (the left-brained person who leads the Spatial team) pointed out that that we were arguing for a new trust architecture in retail.

The nutshell explanation of the idea is:

  • The current retail model is a constructed environment and shopping a learnt experience. This model is a response to the creation of mass market products and supply chains.
  • The model is build on there pillars: customers identifying a need, searching for a solution to the need, and then transacting with a merchant that they may not know or trust. Money – cash – facilitates this, as it enables us to transact with someone we don’t know and may never meet again.
  • However, a number of trends we saw in FoEV suggest that this model might be breaking down. The mid-market dies, consumers seized control of the customer-merchant relationship, peers replaced brands, value is now defined by the consumer rather than the producer, payments are moving away from the till, and shopping is becoming increasingly impulse driven.
  • What will retail look like in a world where need is never fully formed, search is irrelevant, and transactions are seen as distasteful? What is the new trust architecture?

See what you think of the presentation and feel free ping us if you have any thoughts.

The two reports mentioned in the presentation are:

Future of Retail – a New Trust Architecture by Peter Evans-Greenwood