Question

Entrepreneurship and innovation

what are some demographic changes and what opportunities do they create?

Answer 1

Demographic changes can create opportunities that are unexpected or unforeseen. For example, demographic change has been a driving force behind a renaissance of shopping malls in the United States. The first enclosed mall opened in 1956. After over 50 years retail experts were using terms like "dying culture" to describe American shopping malls. Although America boasts approximately 1,500 malls, many have closed as the Internet has brought the world's stores into American homes. Similarly in France, two entrepreneurs began rewriting the rules of retailing years before Sam Walton founded the Walmart chain. Marcel Fournier and Louis Defforey opened the first Carrefour ("crossroads") hypermarket in 1963. At the time, France had a fragmented shop system that consisted of small, specialized stores with only about 5,000 square feet of floor space, such as the boulangerie and charcuterie. The shop system was part of France's national heritage, and shoppers developed personal relationships with a shop's proprietor. However, time-pressed, dual-parent-working families had less time to stop at several stores for daily shopping. The same trend occurred in other countries