Lockerz was profiled today in a great piece in the Wall Street Journal. (Full disclosure – Lockerz is a client of ours).  The article does a great job of describing some of the new retail concepts that are taking the ecommerce world by storm including Social Loyalty and Private Sales.  A key theme to all of these new models is the convergence of content and community with commerce – a blending of media and retail business models if you will.

There is little doubt that new retail concepts are outperforming tradition ecommerce approaches.  Here is one quick analysis comparing Crutchfield – a great retailer since 1974 – with Groupon – a 2 year old company.  The graph shows the rapid growth of Groupon unique monthly visitors surpassing Crutchfield’s stagnant growth.  The valuation Groupon has achieved in a short period of time is also astounding.

The key question for established brands and retailers is – what should you do about it?  Ignore it, create new concepts, change your current site?  Share your thoughts below in comments.