What’s next in retail? According to Viewpoint magazine, the trends include stores becoming embedded in the local community. This makes a certain amount of sense as it links back to the history of retail and also to the rise of localisation, although citing the Samsung ‘Experience’ space in the Time Warner Centre in New York isn’t the best example I’ve ever heard of. Another trend that’s highlighted is the LATTE Factor – Local, Authentic, Trustworthy, Traceable and Ethical. Spot on with that one. Another trend is The Service Initiative. Again, no arguments about this one, although why not just call it customer service? Finally there’s a trend called Only The Rare And The Beautiful. The idea here seems to be that the ‘democratisation’ of luxury is falling apart and thus elitism is making a comeback True but to be honest the ‘masstigue’ trend was always nonsense (people have now rumbled that fact that it’s rubbish) so it’s hardly a surprise that the term is falling apart. Rarity is a nice new buzzword but surely this is nothing new or substantial either. Luxury, by definition, has always been about rarity and exclusivity. It’s about saying no.So what else is on the retail horizon? If you can fight your way through the jargon,the answer includes E-mmersive retail (Brick/Click interfaces and blended environments), Magic Mirrors (Smart mirrors and web-connected mirrors), Mobile Retail (vans and trucks but also guerrilla retail and pop-up retail), New Villages (local retail hubs and covered outdoor markets), Aerotropolis retail (airport and transport-hub based retail) and Orbital retail (on-board shopping on planes, trains and ships). Viewpoint lists some interesting trends, but most most of the nuggets are obscured by a thick cloud of obscure buzzwords and meaningless phrases.

Would you pay US$300 for a pair of socks? According to Dan and Chip Heath (authors of a book called Made to Stick) ultra-premium socks are an inevitability.The argument here is that products become ultra or uber-premium when they are ideas. For example, ‘luxury goods are no longer a sign of status; they’re the mark of connoisseurship’. This is an interesting but somewhat shallow argument. Some products undoubtedly lend themselves to artisan, personalised or luxury variants, particularly when there’s a story to be told and they are available in strictly limited numbers. However, the idea of ‘value-add’ is, in my opinion, very often abused.For instance, I can see the idea behind certain bottles of water that cost $5 or $10 and even why people would prefer these premium waters to tap water. However, bling water at $300 a bottle is nuts. This isn’t connoisseurship, its stupidity. Equally I’m getting a bit fed up with the fact that I can no longer buy a basic toothbrush for a few dollars and have to put up instead with things that cost a fortune and look like they’ve been designed by NASA. There is even a toothbrush available at the moment that has ‘sat nav’ so you can find the right tooth to brush. Seriously.Hence, to say ‘our concept of luxury has evolved’ is rubbish. Luxury is about knowledge and discernment as much as cash, and if the rash of uber products is anything to go by I’d say that our discernment is declining not increasing. $300 socks? They probably are inevitable but that doesn’t mean they should be desirable.

If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The global luxury goods market has been booming thanks largely to high disposable incomes and the growing and increasingly affluent markets of Russia, China, India, Brazil and the Middle East. However, this growth seems to be slowing down due to the triple threat of falling house prices, tighter lending and rising energy and food costs. Clearly this isn’t a major concern for the ultra-wealthy but the merely affluent will probably start to downgrade their spending during 2008 and the trading-up that has been so prevalent over the past three years will probably be replaced by trading down.According to the Luxury Institute (US), spending on luxury goods will grow by 5-9% during 2008, compared to the double-digit growth of the last few years. An early example of this economic downshifting is Starbucks. This manifestation of ‘massclusivity’ or affordable luxury has reported its first ever drop in footfall in its US stores. However, the problem isn’t just the economy. Luxury goods companies like LVMH have been having their cake and eating it by selling exclusivity to the masses. ‘Massclusivity’ is clearly a contradiction. The essence of luxury is surely that not everyone can afford it? Thus ‘Massclusivity’ and ‘affordable luxury’ are oxymorons. Talking or morons, many luxury fashions brands are a chimera because of the ethical and environmental costs associated with these goods. After all, how can anyone really feel good holding a $3,000 handbag if its been made in China with child labour? Some companies are trying to get around this problem by adding an element that’s made locally but this is surely against the spirit of authenticity and realness. We are also seeing the development of new ideas like eco-luxe (sustainable luxury goods) but even this idea could fall foul of bigger shifts in customer attitudes and behaviour over the years ahead.