Cafe X's robot barista serves coffee in San Francisco. One of the biggest problems in retail today is what to do with the brick-and-mortar store. Retailers have in some ways painted themselves into a corner: the one thing stores have that really could make them stand out from online is employees – except that most retailers have taken too many employees out of stores, leaving customers to fend for themselves. If no one is in the store to help you, why bother coming to the store at all, when you can feasibly get a better experience at home on your computer, or even more ironically, on your phone in the parking lot? The question retailers now face is, do they add labor back into stores? Do they, even, add more labor into stores to offer differentiating service that can never be met by online?

Cafe X's robot barista serves coffee in San Francisco. One of the biggest problems in retail today is what to do with the brick and mortar store. Retailers have in some ways painted themselves into a corner: the one thing stores have that really could make them stand out from online is employees – except that most retailers have taken too many employees out of stores, leaving customers to fend for themselves. If no one is in the store to help you, why bother coming to the store at all, when you can feasibly get a better experience at home on your computer, or even more ironically, on your phone in the parking lot? The question retailers now face is, do they add labor back into stores? Do they, even, add more labor into stores to offer differentiating service that can never be met by online?