Few retailers own your dollars

The Trends Research Institute reported in its special Trends Journal “Forecast 2015” edition last December that “monopoly is the new normal.”

More evidence of this powerful trend line surfaced this month when USA TODAY reported that just 10 retailers – including Walmart, CVS and Costco Wholesale – were the beneficiaries of two-thirds of all revenue generated in retail sectors, and 89 other retailers accounted for the lonely third.

The Takeover trend line is “now fully embedded in the social, economic and political spheres that rule our lives. It drills deeper than the massive consolidations we see in banking, media, health care, air lines, retail, etc., on broad national and international scales. Look at your own communities. Look at local and regional consolidations and monopolies that now govern local services and products. Takeover is pervasive.”

TRENDPOST: The Takeover trend shows no sign of weakening. While there is a growing, intensifying backlash to big-box saturation on local-local levels, those niches will remain small. A generation and more of deregulation have opened the flood gates.

It is inescapable. From the big boxes to local medical groups, Takeover is in full motion. Even Hollywood is impacted, as The New York Times reported: “…the freewheeling days at the top talent agencies have largely disappeared, with the two largest shops – William Morris and Creative Arts Agency – now controlled by private-equity firms focused on the bottom line.” 

More consolidation leads to fewer choices for consumers. On-trend entrepreneurs can fill product and service gaps left open by the “Bigs,” who either don’t see them or consider those gaps too small for them to coontrol.