Virtualization of Grocery Stores ?

Grocery Store Display, originally uploaded by shashiBellamkonda.

Recently Jay Berkowitz a good friend came to Network Solutions to talk to us about trends he is seeing in online marketing. There is one term he used "virtualization" - Amazon is removing the middle man - first it was brick and mortar stores and with Kindle its the printed version of the books themselves.

This morning I was in a grocery store and took this picture. I enjoyed the display. I don't eat potato wafers much but this display made me stop , feel happy and have a "smell the roses" moment. I do hope local grocery stores do not go away. For that matter i hope local book stores do not go away either. My kids love the trip to the local Barnes and Noble. We go not with an intention to buy books but invariably we have spent $20 to $30 after a fee hours of playing with Thomas the Train in the kids section, browsing magazines, looking at the latest best sellers. I am always happy to see books of best seliing authors I know. Frank Warren if Post Secrets is one.

What do you think ? Don't you want to get away from the computer ans spend some time in stores, grocery or book stores?