Ecommerce and the changing retail landscape

If you want to get a full sense of the power of ecommerce, just check out this article in Forbes: “Apple Surpasses Wal-Mart As Number One U.S. Music Seller.” The author, David Kaplan, writes:

Less than two months after edging out Best Buy and Target for the number two spot, Apple says it has now passed Wal-Mart as the number one largest music retailer in the U.S. Citing NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey, Apple claims five-year-old iTunes has sold over 4 billion songs to more than 50 million customers. . . According to the NPD data contained in the emails, the sales volume breaks down as this: iTunes has 19%, followed by Wal-Mart’s combined brick-and-mortar outlets and online sales with 15% . . .”

Think about it. A manufacturer, not a retailer, went directly to the public through its own entity, “iTunes” and has beaten out the most powerful retailer in the world. 

Yes, the toy industry has a different business model (at least for now) than the music industry. The lesson seems to be; however, to pay attention to what looks like an increasingly dramatic shift in how business is done in the US and the world. When Wal-Mart drops to second place in any category something big is in the wind.