In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Kristina Stidham and Ashley Chiaradio discuss an article recently published on Total Retail, “The Retail Apocalypse: 5 Dangerous Competitive Trends Explained,” written by Hubert Paul, director at Simon-Kucher & Partners. The first trend identified in the article is that direct-to-consumer (D-to-C) brands have become major category disruptors. With the increasing shift from offline to online shopping, successful D-to-C retailers continue to capitalize on this trend to scale and grow. Rather than providing an innovative or novel product, D-to-C leaders such as Warby Parker, Harry's, and Casper all focus on reinventing the user experience and enhancing the customer journey. The article identifies technology companies as growing competitors to traditional retailers as well, as tech giants like Google continue to capture share in the retail space. Google has already experimented with pop-up shops to provide shoppers with an experience beyond “only” products, and it’s building a portfolio of hardware products. To see what all of the dangerous competitive trends are, click here to read the full article.