Envisioning Future of Retail - Wenig interview with Wired

[SA]

www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/envisioning-the-future-of-retail/

Somewhere around the 17-21 minute mark he touches on fashion for a minute.

[chapeaunoir]

One thing that keeps coming up in all the reading I've done on this is that it will be brand-driven.

It all makes me uncomfortable, because it means that our choice is determined by machine learning and not by our own desire. This has a big impact because a lot of what drives retail is impulse and choice - we will no longer be able to browse and just see what comes up over a variety of items. Machines are not humans.

Etsy is already using this with a little-known firm called Blackbird, and the results have not been good, with choice limited to cheap, mass produced items without significant struggle on the part of the buyers to try to find the other.