Retailers face a fundamental problem: They often have to bet on what consumers will want before they actually buy it. Could changing who takes that risk transform the industry?
John Zhang, professor of marketing at the Wharton School, explains why the traditional merchant model puts so much risk on retailers and how the store in store model changes that equation.
Zhang discusses how manufacturers can take ownership of inventory, why this model has been widely used in Asia, and how platforms such as Amazon and Alibaba have adapted similar approaches.
