For one, the mailbox is answering the call for delivery of online purchases.

Amazon is now teaming up with Staples, Radio Shack, 7-Eleven and Albertsons for its Amazon Locker Service.  The physical retailers will install Amazon lockers in their stores, allowing customers to buy from Amazon and ship packages to the lockers and then pick them up later.

As we have noted in our New American Lifestyles context, individuals are increasingly moving to urban locations and these locker services, also offered by startups BufferBox and ShopRunner, may prove beneficial to those living in apartment buildings and urban environments.

For another example of the past offering a solution for modern problems, the general store is proving to be a valuable retail model in some cities.

Facing a mass exodus from urban to rural areas and a general population decline that was forcing retailers to close, residents of the German village of Barmen formed a corporation and funded the creation of a village center in 2006.  Today the 150 square meter store sells basic staples and also has an ATM machine, post office, travel center, a place to register a car or renew a driver’s license and has a doctor who comes once a week from a neighboring town.

Those who run the Barmen store have gotten so many inquiries from other towns that they have created a separate consulting firm and estimate that they have helped set up about 10 other stores, none of which are losing money.  They have another 25 stores in the works.

According to one of the Barmen consultants, the most important element of the village store is the café in the back.  While the store can’t compete with discounters on price, or with upscale supermarkets on variety, it can offer a community feel and an experience.

Simplicity (the limited inventory), Connectivity (the community of the town center) and Experience (the café) are three things that are making these general stores a success and are also three of the four items, along with Restraint, on our American Consumer Values Hierarchy.

American retailers, faced with a myriad of challenges, might want to look to Germany for some ideas.

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That was President Ronald Reagan’s perspective on international diplomacy.  Increasingly, that is advice all individuals, all the time, need to apply.  On Amazon.com, for instance, roughly 80 percent of all reviews are four stars or higher, a positive perspective that defies human nature.  Yelp!, which knows that fake reviews undermine its entire business model, claims a proprietary fraud-detection system stops at least 20 percent of all reviews before they reach the public.  According to computer scientist Bing Liu, who studies online fraud, roughly 30 percent of all reviews across the Internet are fraudulent.  Yet, 70 percent of global consumers trust online consumer reviews, up from 55 percent just four years ago.  Review fraud is increasing, and trust in those reviews is also increasing.  Is this ignorance or indifference to accuracy?

The Reagan perspective needs to be used much more widely than just for consumer reviews on the Internet.  A recent study of biomedical journals discovered that use of manipulated data or fraudulent professional reviews has increased 10 fold since 1975 – and that study only counted frauds that were caught.  In September alone, several journals, including Experimental Parasitology and Pharmaceutical Biology discovered that nearly 30 papers had made their way to publication by using fake peer reviews.  The reviews, which are routinely solicited by the journal to assess the papers’ worthiness for publication, were fraudulent, most commonly being reviews by fake professionals created by the authors themselves.

The Internet has put an enormous amount of information at everyone’s fingertips, and now those wanting to use that incredible resource are having to deal with the effects of the intentional polluting of that information. Has deception and fraud become so commonplace that those trying to detect it constantly lag the deceivers?  What does that say about nearly all kinds of societal interactions, including those in retail, advertising, medicine, equities, religion, politics, education, marketing and on and on?  Is there any place individuals can place their trust?  Is there room for an independent, non-aligned business to validate information?

Hmmm, fact checking, the new black.

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We’ve written about the ways in which producers of other goods are attempting to eliminate the middle man and sell directly to consumers and now some book publishers are following suit.  It appears that the publishers are more afraid of Amazon’s power (60 percent of the e-book market) than they are of piracy.  Can these publishers effectively dent Amazon’s profits, or is it too little, too late?

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