Articles

Nobody has to come anymore. What that changed for stores, shopping centres and airports, and what it takes to win in any of them.

Ask a store manager how many people entered the store today and they can answer in seconds. Ask them how many visited the fitting room, at what hour, from which section, and how many of those reached the tills, and the answer is usually a guess.

A centre's income is increasingly tied, by contract, to what happens on a floor it can count but cannot explain.

Retail, food and parking are roughly 37 percent of airport income. Spend per passenger moves every quarter, and nothing the airport owns says why.

The till was the store's scoreboard for a century. The store's new job never reaches it.

Profit is concentrating to fewer companies in stores, shopping centres and airports alike. What the winners have in common, and why the same divide matters for AI.