The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google

by Scott Galloway

Jet.com was not worth $3 billion, but it was worth more than $3 billion to Walmart. Online sales were up over 50 percent each quarter of 201786—this alone is worth more than $3 billion to a $300 billion dollar firm. However, online sales tanked again in early 2018, igniting concerns about whether the juggernaut can keep pace as more and more retail spending shifts to the web.87 While Walmart attempts to bolt on an e-commerce operation to its existing physical retail infrastructure, Amazon is building and acquiring stores to complement its robust online retail—and is likely to win as a result. Consumers increasingly prefer a channel-agnostic experience, where digital (specifically your smartphone) serves as the connective tissue between consumer, store, and site. The consumer always wins, and she has a choice: Door 1, a great e-commerce experience; Door 2, a great in-store experience; or Door 3, a great site and store experience connected by her mobile phone. The ability to reserve something on her phone, pay later on mobile or desktop, pick it up in store, and never have to wait in a checkout line is damn near unbeatable. Sephora, Home Depot, and many department stores already have this kind of multichannel integration. The future of retail may currently look more like Sephora than Amazon in its current form. However, Amazon has the assets—capital, technology, trust, unrivaled investment in last-mile fulfillment—and 460 stores/warehouses in affluent areas (Whole Foods) to ...

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