by Alan Beatts
For years the news has been full of material about the way that the internet will change (and has changed) shopping habits. Within the bookselling industry, Amazon.com is the second most often mentioned cause for independent store closures (the most cited cause are the national chains, most notably Borders and Barnes and Noble). In the wake of Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop's announcement that they are closing their doors (1), I've been musing on the probable future of retail quite a bit. This musing is partly in self-defense but is also motivated by a curiosity about what the world of retail may be like in ten or twenty years.
