Posted on 06/21/2015 2:28:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Big apparel brands are grappling with shoppers who increasingly want deeply discounted clothes over classic logos and status.
Gap is closing one-quarter of its stores and laying off hundreds of workers after disappointing sales. J. Crew just fired 10% of the workers at its corporate headquarters as sales and profits continue to plunge.
The teen-apparel market is also struggling as a whole, with big-name players like Abercrombie & Fitch and Aeropostale closing stores.
Sears, Macy's, and JCPenney have also shuttered hundreds of store locations in recent years.
More than two dozen malls have shut down in the last four years and another 60 malls are on the brink of death, The New York Times reported, citing Green Street Advisors, a real estate and real-estate investments trust analytics firm.
Despite the changes, certain businesses are benefiting from mall-closure trends.
"At a time when some big department stores are struggling and Internet shopping is on the rise, the mall industry is doing surprisingly well," writes Robbie Whelan at The Wall Street Journal.
Mall sales have steadily risen every year since the recession as other industries have filled the void in the malls that haven't shut their doors.
Here are the industries taking over the remaining malls.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The reason the clothing stores are closing is because they stopped selling unique high-quality clothing that wasn't just geared to kids.
Penney's, Sears and Woolworth were on Main Street and the local grocery or drug store was not a chain . . . 1960’s near Phoenix.
Maybe it was all a fad like hula hoops.
Personally, I always go Marshall’s and Burger King/McD’s.
Not going to click on Business Insider. Having said that, the problem is not one of quality, but of price. Obama’s economy makes it hard to buy all the things people could buy when they had full-time jobs.
Wife couldn’t find any good shirts for me in Dept stores for Father’s day. They were overstocked with “slim”. But none for me with a little paunch. As an IT consultant to retail and retail salesperson in the past, I suspect the following.
The software is written to replenish what was sold. Slim is the only style that sells so it is the only style that is re-ordered. This isn’t just in clothing.
Radio Shack is notorious for this. It will run out of 6 packs of batteries and hence sell more 2 packs and 12 packs. Thus it will never reorder what is out of stock.
It happens in healthcare and other areas. The software is written to depend on past history, even when that past history has been altered by that very software to be a distorted picture of reality.
Kinda like finding a polo shirt with pocket, people quit smoking so pocket no longer needed, sorry I can’t wrap my cell phone in my tee shirt sleeve.
Out of curiosity, was there an A&P where you were back in those days?
That crap on your about page is so racist.
I lived right down the street from the A&P! Can’t remember who bought em out.
Marshall’s and TJ Maxx are great if (like me) you have champagne tastes and a Ripple budget. Kohls is doing quite well too.
We have watched our local drug store being Obamunated the last few weeks. It’s being downsized by its new national owner. Half of the stuff has disappeared off the shelves, items supposedly for sale are nowhere to be found, a lot of the shelves only have two items each and are not being restocked.
Looks like something out of the former Soviet Union. The parking lot today was empty whereas it used to be on Sundays (sale day) the place was packed. We walked around a little looking for things and then my wife said, this is too depressing, and we left.
It’s sad. The country is being killed off by Obama and his policies, the economic depression is getting worse and worse, and no one will even admit what is happening.
You can’t find clothing in my area any longer. What’s left is unbelievably poor quality. You pretty much are reduced to ordering from Lands’ End over the internet. Same with shoes.
Zero’s not helping matters, true, but it’s the big boxes that are destroying Mom and Pop. Even pre 2008, indy hardware stores, pet stores and pharmacies were becoming tough to find.
Because the "classic logos and status" now come attached to products with the same low quality as the deeply discounted off brands. The American shopper is still smart enough not to pay an upcharge for junk.
Whatever. Chicks still dig my Members Only jacket.
No A&P. Didn’t even know what that was then.
Are you joking?
So are cobblers and tinkers.
Darning eggs are impossible to find!
Cobblers are still around.
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