Today I attended several sessions at day two of the International Downtown Association's annual meeting at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee. During the next two weeks, I will blog on different topics covered at the conference.

First up are some retail tidbits and eight growth areas in Downtown retail. These come from Michael Stumpf from Place Dynamics, a consulting company in New Berlin. Stumpf was a part of a session at the conference called, "Retail Graduate School: The Future of Retail." John Archer from Urban Marketing Collaborative (a division of J.C. Williams Group) with offices in Toronto, Chicago and Montreal also presented.

While I took away many ideas from the session, one of the biggest, if not most obvious, is that online is still the fasting growing retail channel. Panelists predicted 15 percent annual growth and a total of $281 billion in all online sales by 2013. Amazing.

Where's the other growth in retail coming from? Place Dynamics says:

• Pets and pet services. After all, there are more dogs in America than kids under the age of 18.
• Home and garden. The Gardening sector experienced major growth in the last year.
• Health and alternative health.
• Products for the reluctantly aging (massages, spas, vitamins, etc.).
• Goods and services targeted at ethnic populations.
• Green / organic / local.
• Experienced-based retail.
• Ready to go / grab and go / anytime open establishments.

As far as trends in retail, Place Dynamics and Urban Marketing Collaborative said:

• Watch for a shift from aspiration shopping -- not everyone who wants a BMW will buy one.
• Local and community shopping will continue to grow.
• Post-recession spending will rise to at least 85 percent of pre-recession levels.
• Shoppers will buy fewer, but more meaningful items.
• Solution-orientated shopping will become stronger.

The bottom line is that the customer still matters in all retail. But, increasingly we don't just buy, we buy solutions. A case in point is Zappos. While a retailer, it bills itself as a "service company that happens to sell!"

What are your thoughts on the future of retail? Use the Talkback feature.