Even by the standards of Silicon Valley, where dramatic predictions are as common as hot dinners, to say that “Retail is Dead” is still quite shocking. What, you mean dead dead, not just say, resting? Yes, that is what Marc Andreessen of Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz recently told PandoDaily's Sarah Lacy.

In February 2011, founder of Net-a-Porter Natalie Massenet told the Financial Times; ‘Media companies are going to become retailers and retailers are going to become media companies” Fast-forward two years and Massenet’s predictions prove true, as announcements of new partnerships between media and e-commerce companies and emerging shoppable magazines are proliferating.

As the 2012 retail year ended, we noticed two major factors were driving an increase in online sales: mobile and the increasing use and influence of video. In fact, Ashley Schwartz, founder of digital advertising consultancy Furious Minds, told Beet.TV that video views of retail items are driving as much as 40 percent of site visitors to ecommerce sites.