Transaction Cost as Hidden Competitor

“spend just as much time working on how you can reduce consumer transaction costs as you do trying to reduce manufacturing costs. Could you get young people to save for a pension — if they could choose the monthly amount by SMS? Could you get people to travel more by train if it were possible to reserve a parking space? Maybe you only need the hard sell because your product isn’t easy to”

“Argos would be another example. Men traditionally are supposed to hate shopping. And yet Argos amazingly has as many male shoppers as female. Why? Because Argos uniquely offers offline shopping in a format that does not alienate men. Why has no other retail brand attempted this? Why do my M&S corduroy trousers not simply contain a URL and a reference number if I wish to reorder them? Or allow me to order a second pair by text? I’ll happily give you my money — just don’t make me spend two hours in a bloody shop — probably in a queue behind someone from WACL wondering whether something is also available in a 12.”