Merchants will find that they can dispense with sales floors and sales staff altogether and just maintain servers with databases … Consumers might either “window shop” by remotely accessing such virtual stores, or they might delegate the task to software shopping agents that go out on the Net with shopping lists, inspect the specifications and prices of the merchandise on offer, and return with reports on the best available matches and prices. Closure of a sale can immediately trigger a delivery order at a warehouse, update an inventory database, and initiate an electronic money transfer … Retail location becomes a matter of being in the right directories … The stock is bigger and the selection larger than in the mightiest big-box off-ramp superstore. The things that remain in physical form are warehouses … and delivery vehicles.
Predictor: Mitchell, William J.
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 book “City of Bits,” MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell writes: ”When there is enough network bandwidth, and when adequate display devices are sufficiently inexpensive and widespread, Shinjuku rents become irrelevant. The electronic mall becomes the digital successor to the Sears catalogue and the home shopping shows on cable television … Salesperson, customer, and product supplier no longer have to be brought together in the same spot; they just have to establish electronic contact … Even where familiar-looking retail stores remain, they are fast transmuting into computer-intensive network nodes … Increasingly though, merchants will find that they can dispense with sales floors and sales staff altogether and just maintain servers with databases of product specifications, prices, availability information, images, and simulations … Consumers might either ‘window shop’ by remotely accessing such virtual stores, or they might delegate the task to software shopping agents that go out on the Net with shopping lists, inspect the specifications and prices of the merchandise on offer, and return with reports on the best available matches and prices. Closure of a sale can immediately trigger a delivery order at a warehouse, update an inventory database, and initiate an electronic money transfer … With such soft shops, specialized retail districts and the departments that make up department stores simply become directory categories – logical groupings presented as menu items, icons, or virtual ‘storefronts’ in the interfaces of online services. Retail location becomes a matter of being in the right directories. As with the old telephone Yellow Pages, customers let their fingers (or rather now, their cursors) do the walking. The stock is bigger and the selection larger than in the mightiest big-box off-ramp superstore. The things that remain in physical form are warehouses (which may become smaller as computerized inventory-control strategies become more sophisticated) and delivery vehicles. From Kmart to Cybermart! Sic transit retail space?”
Biography:William J. Mitchell was a professor and dean of architecture at MIT and the author of the predictive book “City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn” (1994). He also taught at Harvard, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and Cambridge Universities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: Shopping
Name of publication: City of Bits
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 4: Recombinant Architecture
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/index.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney