Dive Brief:

• Nike and Ralph Lauren are two of the retailers best positioned to thrive online, according to Goldman Sachs internet analyst Heath Terry, CNBC reports.

• Terry on Thursday forecasted e-commerce growth of 22% this year, and said that the kind of distinct brand equity enjoyed by the likes of Nike and Ralph Lauren presents a decided advantage for future success.

• By contrast, retailers like Kohl’s, Bed Bad & Beyond and Abercrombie & Fitch that sell more commoditized goods will continue to face headwinds online, Terry said. "Those are all things that can be sold by Amazon," he told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” segment.

Dive Insight:

Goldman Sachs' Terry is bullish on "the strength of the pure plays," or retailers that solely focus on web sales. But there are complexities to digital retail that make it more expensive and plain trickier to market and sell online.

While recent research from Goldman Sachs, Walker Sands and UPS and comScore found evidence of accelerating e-commerce growth, especially among millennials, subsequent reports from Salesforce and Boston Consulting Group challenge the notion that online sales will boom that much.

Meanwhile, a January report from L2 entitled “Death of Pure-Play Retail” conducted with Simon Property Group maintains that there ultimately is no such thing as “pure-play e-commerce” because successful e-retailers eventually open physical stores. That also challenges Heath's view of pure-plays' runaway advantage.

In fact, many e-commerce retailers may be blithely unaware of some more subtle advantages that brick-and-mortar retailers enjoy. It’s related to that “touch and feel,” but also has to do with emotional reactions humans have in a physical environment, web psychologist Liraz Margalit of digital customer experience solutions startup Clicktale told Retail Dive last year. Though there are ways e-retailers can also "second that emotion," she said. 

“The online store needs to provide us with the same kind of experience, to create these feelings we have in physical stores,” Margalit said. “When you go to buy something, it’s not always a rational decision. It’s an emotional one. But sitting at our screens is a more ‘rational’ environment than being in a store.” 

That’s where brand equity like that of Nike and Ralph Lauren could make all the difference, as their brands’ strengths can carry over to the web. Ralph Lauren earlier this month said it would close 50 under-performing stores, and Terry noted that many of those sales will inevitably move online.

Still, Terry noted to CNBC that larger e-commerce companies like Amazon have been able to finance powerful fulfillment operations. That’s in contrast to startups that rely on third parties for fulfillment, Terry added. And brick-and-mortar retailers are having mixed results in omnichannel, finding that e-commerce fulfillment (which often includes leveraging store assets) can be expensive and complex.