From Big Volume and Big Boxes to Big Data

The first cycle in the Darwinism of the European textile sector was dominated by traders’ knowledge about the sources of the product-materials and opportunities for processing. In a second phase covering the start of industrial mass-production and professional mass-distribution outlets for textiles were established with benchmarks at high frequency spots in down-towns of agglomerations like Berlin, Cologne, London or Paris. Department stores became the anchor of cities and for life-style driven citizens. In the third phasis the outlet-dominance is attacked by IT-driven businesses by the development of tools like the European Article Numbering-system, chips and QR-codes, clouds for big data and data-mining, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality. For the textile traders it is an improvement of the efficiency by the ability to control the total supply chain electronically; for the consumer the potential interconnectivity with the internet and smartphones is an empowerment of demand because the choices for alternative points of sales are permanently increasing and mobile shopping decreases the dependance on locations of brick-and stone. In the fourth long-term trade cycle starting in the 20ies of this century shopping in an affluent society is mixing with entertainment: in future also inclusive gaming in a virtual world with avatars being sponsored by the branded goods industry of textiles or by outlet-chains. The final outfit of customers might be codetermined by long-distance partners in those games or it might be a decision tool for the planning of a meeting of a group of shoppers in a specific outlet at a certain date. The real world and the virtual world mix in a Metaverse.