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Is brick and mortar doomed
mogley98
Member Posts: 18,291 ✭✭✭✭
Sears/ K-mart is past life support, HH Gregg is gone, Circuit City out, Gander out, Linens and things, Etc. Etc.
Will all of them fail?
Target, Kohls, JC Penny?
I for one hate going to Wally World, well so much so that I just don't. I will pay more for it rather then go there.
I am not comfortable buying clothing that may or may not fit on line, and some items are "impulse" purchases that I "need to pick up"
What say you soothsayers?
Will all of them fail?
Target, Kohls, JC Penny?
I for one hate going to Wally World, well so much so that I just don't. I will pay more for it rather then go there.
I am not comfortable buying clothing that may or may not fit on line, and some items are "impulse" purchases that I "need to pick up"
What say you soothsayers?
Why don't we go to school and work on the weekends and take the week off!
Comments
The other factor is that many folk "our" age don't have electronical babysitters or enough phone/tablet/computer knowledge to be comfortable using a credit card without speaking to someone.
Customer Service has always been the tipping point for me, when deciding whether to use the interwebs, or go to a store.
BTW-Kohls, Target, & KMart are subsidiary stores from one another, and they won't be around long enough to worry about. That's mainly due to the slackjawed snowflakes and entitled morons they use as cashiers.
Remember Sears & Roebuck?
Look for more companies that will go out. And good riddance to them. Online shopping is part of the problem, but not all.
Most companies are doing it backwards: They are cutting staff when they should be adding staff. Imagine how much stuff they would sell if, when you walked in the door to Home Depot, each customer got a personal helper! I know I'd buy more stuff, just because I usually end up with at least one full cart! Keep in mind, they are only paying people $10-12 at most of these big chain stores. One sale per hour could easily pay for their wages!
Less than 10% of all shopping is done online, so we have a LOT more companies to fail.
Maybe the ones that are left will get it together.
Merc
Then you got places like Best Buy who used to (when Circuit City existed) had rows of DVDs and CDs. You could almost make a day out of looking and actually needed a basket. Now only some new releases gets stocked and forget any independent or something foreign. The so called "help" when asked for something you couldn't find says "you can order it online". Which just makes you say why the fork did I wait until they opened at 10:00 A.M. to have them tell me to order it online?
A state like California will have a brick and mortar "gun store". They might be far and away in between in some "blue" aras. Only because the state has made it difficult for subjects to get a piece. So I think GunBroker makes some gun stores in California money by the fees they charge for their services.
For shoppers like me who doesn't wanna deal with the whims of CA DOJ's what's "safe". I just wait to get lucky seeing something new in the glass case.
Now, you don't go to the furniture store to buy a mattress, like we used to.
You grab your Iphone and buy a Casper mattress online.
You don't buy a pillow at JC Penneys, you buy My Pillow online, for only fifty bucks! What a deal!
Did you know your sheets are no good? They are the blame for your sleepless nights. You need to buy bollandbranch.com all-cotton sheets online! Use the Iphone!
All these guys advertise on Sirius and they pay through the nose. I read that My Pillow spends $4 million A WEEK on advertising.
Which means, they are making $8 million a week.
Some of this stuff is silly, but, bricks and mortar are up the creek with a wire canoe. Just two weeks ago I wanted to buy 3 Krugerrands, nobody had them in stock locally so I bought online.
If anything, online shopping is helping the local storefronts hold their own against the BIG BOX guys.
When I need 'specific things' of a tool or hardware description, I head to the local hardware.
Where I can get personal attention and help in a very quick IN/OUT trip.
If I'm 'shopping' I'll head to the computer...
If I find something I want, I'll compare costs between online +shipping (maybe +tax) against local +tax.
If I can get it cheaper online. but it's in stock locally...
I give the local store the opportunity to match price. And if they don't or can't...
I may still give them the business for the sake of convenience and time.
There is a new Rural King in my area. Every time we go, the place is packed.
Trust me they are just another slime ball big company with zero concern for its workers or its customers. I have seen first hand the corruption of upper management and the absurd heavy handed way they try to micro manage everything.
Wonder what gun shops think of GunBroker. Well the ones who have not adapted and started using GunBroker.
When we first started going to SHOT people did come up and ask why we were there that we were their competition. Once we explained how we help them make more money they generally changed their mind. There are still a few old farts that just don't get it. But they seem to by dying off slowly but surely.
All these guys advertise on Sirius and they pay through the nose.
I listen to channels 5,6,7,8 and 59 which is 50s,60s,70s, and 80s music along with Willie's Roadhouse which is country on channel 59 and I've never heard a commercial on Sirius radio. What do you listen to where you have to listen to commercials? I would drop Sirius if I had to listen to commercials.
Where much of the last generation was all about how fast can you offshore your product and manufacturing- I think you will see the inverse for companies that want to remain competitive but don't fit the amazon model.
Say what boogerman?
The clothes rack at Sears is a good example. Used to be so many racks you could barely squeeze between them. Now they are rquired to have 36" between them. 36" between everything. All the extra displays and impulse items set here and there, are gone. Ton's of ladies clothes (mega-profit)used to carry every style, size and color now down to a fraction of what they once were. Thousands of clothes racks taken to the scrapper.
Kirklands is another example. You once couldn't walk through the store without knocking stuff over, now you could waltz in there.
People think the inventory in stores is down for various reasons, (troubled times, manager is a bozo) but the ADA is the real reason.
There are now types of arseholes that just go out and look for problems then sue and/or file a complaint, which costs the retailers serious money. Subsequent complaints on same store, fines get astronomical.
Walmart policy is three floor tiles (12" each) between everything. Three tiles have to be visible at all times.
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
quote:Originally posted by allen griggs
All these guys advertise on Sirius and they pay through the nose.
I listen to channels 5,6,7,8 and 59 which is 50s,60s,70s, and 80s music along with Willie's Roadhouse which is country on channel 59 and I've never heard a commercial on Sirius radio. What do you listen to where you have to listen to commercials? I would drop Sirius if I had to listen to commercials.
If you listen to any of the sports or talk stations all kinds of ads. I dropped my siruis more for programming changes then anything. I think the comedy stations did to but haven't listened in a couple of months.
Even the small city I live in charges every merchant in the city limits a $900.00 per year "Privilege" fee.
Mail order and internet sales are a relatively new phenomena and warehouses outside big cities where government leaves you alone are replacing B&M stores.
There is no greater destroyer of wealth and jobs than government,
Mom gave me a electric wine opener she ordered from Wetbar.com
My oldest Daughter says she likes Kohls and goes there a lot.
I agree a niche can be carved out by smart retailers.
The pool will probably thin down though. Malls are almost a stupid place to go anymore since the costs are generally higher and the clientele is going south.
That may kill off Pennys.
quote:Originally posted by allen griggs
All these guys advertise on Sirius and they pay through the nose.
I listen to channels 5,6,7,8 and 59 which is 50s,60s,70s, and 80s music along with Willie's Roadhouse which is country on channel 59 and I've never heard a commercial on Sirius radio. What do you listen to where you have to listen to commercials? I would drop Sirius if I had to listen to commercials.
Small world. I also listen to 5, 6, 7, and 8. And also 59, Willie's Roadhouse. Love those country classics.
But, I can preset 10 channels. So I listen to Fox on 114, also MSNBC [must keep emesis bag close at hand.] Also I listen to some of the Progressive channel on 127, once again can't take too much but need to keep up with what the libs are up to.
Patriot channel on 125 has some very good conservative conversation.
Also listen to Glen Beck and Dave Ramsey on channel 132.
All these non music channels are loaded with ads.
And, Sirius makes a fortune running these ads.
Like I said I am driving the big rig for 11 to 14 hours a day so I listen to a lot of radio.
By the way, there is a guy on channel 125 every evening from 7 to 9 pm, this guy is really good. He is, of all things, a Muslim born guy from London named Raheem. He now lives in America and he is a conservative. Has a great voice for radio with a great British accent. He is very intelligent and is polite, does not cut callers off, even those who disagree.
Try Raheem for an hour one night, if you can stand the ads, and see what you think.
We came here 13 years ago. Then the property tax was reasonable, the water was very good and utilities were cheap the scenery was great. Fishing and hunting was good and it was very low crime.
NOW-- The property tax has gone up 50%. The water has almost doubled and it taste like bad. We have windmills fouling up the scenery. Fishing ,deer and bird hunting is lousy. We still have good law enforcement but the burglary rate has gone way up. The budget is wrecked by public employee retirement funding. The city wants us to pay a separate fee{TAX] for fire and police protection because they used the money to enhance their salaries while most others here are making less. The Forest service is trying to close the roads.
The DEMOCRATS are wrecking this state completely. I want out. Most voters are too stupid to vote them out. The state is working on some very important legislation. They want to change the drivers licenses to read Male, Female,and other? They say that will only cost about $300,000. I guess some of the politicians feel left out. Besides trying to figure out how to raise taxes without the dumb bells knowing it that is the priority as of now.
get what I want when I want and no driving /searching no tax in most cases delivered to me door and cheaper but at a larger cost
local stores can not compete due to overhead and labor cost
however if you think about it we are also adding to the welfare population with out the service jobs and similar min wage jobs . those loosing there job local will add too,,
that many more will just sign up on the free ride .
really I can not blame them work for min wage no benefits or insurance just enough to scrape by not including paying a babysitter , rent , utility bills and so on.
but the people down the block have free housing free medical , free money every month to stay home and do what ever they want . to name a few of the perks vs working
is it any wonder so many are dropping the min wage jobs . welfare needs to be revamped so its not a better life then working [:(!]
jerry, sounds like you live in NC. New arrivals in and around my county have made it near impossible for natives to afford living here where we grew up. They love it here. Slowly and surely they are turning it into the hell holes they came from.[:(!]
You must live in or near Asheville?
The public employees union is destroying the country.