Do you own retail storefronts, big or small?  Do you look at the web and wonder if it's going to eat your company alive in one year, five years, ten years?    Well here are two simple questions you can ask yourself to determine whether your storefront is safe against the onslaught of web disruption:

1) Is your storefront significantly more convenient to customers than the web?

2) Do you sell a good/service that can't be sold via the web?

If you answered yes to either or both of these things, you're safe from web disruption.  For now.

If not (and most storefronts would answer no to both of these questions), you are directly in the path of the web's disruption of retail.  

Here are some examples of stores that are safe and stores that are not safe:

My corner store sells butter, orange juice and toilet paper, three things everyone in my neighborhood needs and runs out of constantly.  When we run out of these things, we need them NOW - we can't wait for the online service to show up with its truck and deliver.  It is safe from web disruption for now.

The cafe down the street sells coffee, which I need several times a day.  I can't get it on the web.  (Not yet at least - next year, who knows?)  What's more, it is nearby and I enjoy walking to get it.  It is safe from web disruption for now.

The shoe store on Broadway?  It sells shoes that I can get on the web more easily than by walking to the store.  Its selection is smaller.  And try as I might, I can't even remember the name of the store!  I CAN remember the brand of shoe I want - which I can easily look up on the web.  It is not safe from web disruption.  

The big electronics store on Union Square?  I go into it and decide what electronics I want, then buy them for less online. It is not safe from web disruption.

So then what do you do if you're sitting directly in the path of web disruption, like Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz?  

Well, it turns out that (thankfully) there is a third question you can ask yourself, which can save you from web disruption.  And this one you have the power to determine the answer to yourself.  It is this:

3) Are you a company that co-exists equally in physical space and on the web?  Does your storefront operation tie in seamlessly to an online experience, allowing in-store visitors to become online buyers of products (and services!) now and at any time in the future? 

If your answer to that third question is "yes", then congratulations - you are positioned to move forward into the new age of storefront retail.  

In the new age of retail, the successful storefront is an extension of the online store.  The two are not separate, but continuous.  The physical reinforces the virtual, and the virtual reinforces the physical.  A customer who leaves the store without buying something isn't a loss to the business - they are simply a customer who will continue their experience online, and develop a closer relationship with the company.  A customer who starts their buying process on the web may decide to go to the storefront to finish it, pre-armed with knowledge of what they want.

The two together add up to more than the sum of their parts.  

The disruption of the web is continually accelerating, but as a retailer you don't have to lose from it.  You can instead join it and win.