Today I will not talk about retail

During the last years I have written here about commerce, leadership, transformation, customer experience or innovation. But on this occasion I want to stop at something that, although it may not seem like a retail topic, is present in any company. We can talk about Artificial Intelligence, digitalization or new consumption trends, but no project can sustain itself over time without trust.

Lately, I observe with concern a trend that goes far beyond the business world. I refer to the ease with which we are learning to live with situations that a few years ago would have seemed unacceptable to us. And I am not talking about a specific event, nor about a person, nor about an ideology. I am talking about this habit of looking the other way, of justifying certain attitudes simply because they are repeated over and over again, as if we ended up accepting them simply by seeing them frequently.

Sometimes I have the feeling that we have assumed that looking the other way is a form of prudence, that keeping silent demonstrates intelligence or that not getting involved avoids problems. But perhaps it is only a way of giving up, little by little, what, deep down, we know is right. Because I don't believe that integrity consists of always being right. For me, it consists of preserving the ability to distinguish between what builds and what destroys, even when saying it is uncomfortable. The problem does not begin only when someone crosses a line, but when those around stop seeing it.

This almost never happens overnight. It happens little by little. Normalizing small inconsistencies. Accepting behaviors that we previously questioned. Justifying the unjustifiable because it is more comfortable than defending a principle. Societies do not change only because of the decisions of those who do things wrong, they also change because of the silence of those who know that something does not fit and decide not to say anything. There is no need to become anyone's judge, but neither should we resign ourselves to being permanent spectators.

Common sense also does not disappear suddenly. It erodes. Every time we let a lie pass. Every time we accept an injustice because it does not directly affect us. Every time we reward interest over honesty or confuse neutrality with indifference. And this erosion, sooner or later, also ends up reaching the business world.

In retail we talk a lot about personalization, omnichannel or new technologies. All of this matters and will continue to transform the sector. But before any tool there is something much simpler, like fulfilling what you promise. Customer experience starts here. It starts when a brand responds, when a supplier meets a deadline or when a merchant recommends a product because they truly believe it is the most suitable, and not simply because it leaves them a larger margin.

After more than twenty years working with merchants, I have seen businesses overcome economic crises, consumption changes and technological transformations. But if there is one thing I have never seen recover easily, it is trust once it is lost.

Businesses that last are not always the largest or the most innovative. They tend to be those that people trust. Customers return because they know what to expect, because they find consistency between what a brand says and what it does, and because they feel that behind the business there are people who keep their word.

Technology will change many things in the coming years. It will change the way we buy, sell and interact with customers. But credibility will remain just as important ten years from now. No algorithm will be able to replace the peace of mind that a company conveys when it keeps its word, acknowledges an error or acts with transparency, even when doing so comes at a cost.

That's why today I wanted to talk about something that goes far beyond retail. Because the future of commerce will not depend solely on digitalization, Artificial Intelligence or new consumption trends. It will also depend on whether we continue to be able to trust each other, on whether we continue to believe that a given word has value, and on whether we continue to transmit to the next generation that honesty, respect and responsibility are not values of the past, but essential principles for building any project that aspires to last.

Perhaps we still have time. But this requires a personal decision. Not to point fingers at anyone or to impose our ideas, but to never get used to what, deep down, we know is not right. Because the greatest risk for any society is not losing wealth, competitiveness, or capacity to innovate. It is losing the capacity to be outraged by what we should never have considered normal.

And when that happens, it's not just the future of retail that's at stake. It's the type of companies we build, the trust we are capable of generating, and, above all, the society we will leave to the next generation.