The coming demise of the retail storefront

Last week my wife Deb and I were relaxing at a new shopping center in the Denver area. Along the sidewalks a series of speakers cast a rather pleasant musical backdrop to the shopping experience.

At one point an interesting song began playing. I reached for my iPhone, and used a program called Shazam to “listen” to the music, revealing the name of the song and the artist. I was then able to purchase the song on my iPhone and download it directly to the phone for later use.

The nature of this transaction is quite revealing in that it gives us clues as to what our shopping experiences will be like in the future.

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