In 2012, Matt Scanlan, the founder and chief executive officer of Naadam Cashmere, was just a young New York University alumnus with an unsatisfying job at a venture capital firm. "After a couple years of working as an analyst - which is a pretty thankless job - I left," he says. "A week after I quit, I booked a flight" to Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, to visit a college friend who lived in the region. The two of them met a newspaper reporter who hailed from Scanlan's hometown of Westport, Conn., and soon happened to hit it off with a couple of the reporter's sources, nomadic goat herders."

How fast is fast enough when it comes to clothes and gratification? How much do you really need that dress or bag or platform sandal?

If Amazon's latest clothing manufacturing plans become a reality, air cargo companies could stand to lose billions in revenues. Last week, the e-commerce giant was awarded a patent for a localized manufacturing setup that eliminates much of the traditional supply chain, bringing manufacturing closer to consumers than ever before.

In the age of the omnichannel, is there any hope for traditional retail chains?

The battered American retail industry took a few more lumps last week, with stores at both ends of the price spectrum preparing to close their doors.