Or at least be frequented less?
Walmart Labs recently launched a new initiative called Goodies, which is a subscription based food discovery service. It's not the only one of it's kind, in fact there are a whole slew of subscription based discovery services out there, including: Birchbox, Glossybox, ipsy and a whole bunch of other competitors.
I think this model is really neat because it represents an evolution of Seth Godin's permission marketing principle. Many companies have been using a monthly subscription model to offer services for some time now (mostly software companies) and it is interesting to see how packaged goods companies are getting involved.
As usual, I am interested in what the future of this will mean. Right now, if we use Goodies as an example, Walmart is acting as the middle man between packaged goods manufacturers and end-consumers. Will we eventually see a disintermediation in this space?
Will you one day be getting the newest and coolest products directly from giants like Unilever and P&G every month? If so, where will their store fronts be? Where could they possibly reach a massive global audience ... Facebook perhaps?
Walmart is massive and has now set a really neat precedent. I wonder who will follow suit.
