With mobile connectivity more and more ubiquitous, could we be entering a post-mobile age? eBay’s Devin Wenig thinks so, and says it will increasingly define the global marketplace. “The physical and digital worlds are coming together in incredibly interesting ways,” Wenig told us at a recent Techonomy dinner salon in San Francisco. Retail is turning stores into virtual shopping and shipping centers, said Wenig, while platforms like Uber and Airbnb use tech to link data to the physical world. The fear that online retailers like eBay could decimate physical retail is being upended, according to Wenig. Instead, small merchants and service providers are learning to use tech and data to broaden their distribution and become more competitive. “Some call it collaborative consumption, some call it the merger of physical and digital. Whatever you call it,” said Wenig, “the change … has been astounding.”
eBay’s Devin Wenig on Retail in a Post-Mobile Age
With mobile connectivity more and more ubiquitous, could we be entering a post-mobile age? eBay's Devin Wenig thinks so, and says it will increasingly define the global marketplace. "The physical and digital worlds are coming together in incredibly interesting ways," Wenig told us at a recent Techonomy dinner salon in San Francisco. Retail is turning stores into virtual shopping and shipping centers, said Wenig, while platforms like Uber and Airbnb use tech to link data to the physical world. The fear that online retailers like eBay could decimate physical retail is being upended, according to Wenig. Instead, small merchants and service providers are learning to use tech and data to broaden their distribution and become more competitive. "Some call it collaborative consumption, some call it the merger of physical and digital. Whatever you call it," said Wenig, "the change ... has been astounding."
