Dive Brief:

• 68% of retailers said that stores are still the most important channel for shoppers, and one in three have expansion plans, according to the results from an Australian Centre of Retail Studies survey released at the World Retail Congress in Paris.
• Georges Plassat, head of the retailer Carrefour, told the conference that he is "totally convinced that click and mortar is the future" and that a world in which people only shop online is "totally a dream," thanks to the amount of energy that would be required.
• Mark Lewis, the head of John Lewis Online, agreed, noting that brick-and-mortar stores can step up with strategies such as collecting Internet orders in-store, catering to customers who research online and reaching customers who use smartphones for scanning items and reading reviews.

Dive Insight:

There's a lot of wisdom in these words that Reuters collected at the World Retail Congress. Until a world with perfect delivery systems and no carbon footprints exists, these retail voices sound like they're on target. If your offline operation doesn't have some kind of online strategy, it's probably time to change that.