Posted on 02/01/2016 8:58:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It's a symptom of the dying middle class.
Nearly all of those stores take up huge footprints in malls, yet get little traffic save for walk-thrus (at least from what I see & do). Can’t possibly maintain such inventory & footage without major traffic, all of which seems keen on going to the boutiques instead of buying similar-priced meh-fashion goods.
The rest of the stores are old high-profile retailers: not the giant square footage, but old enough to have their “cool” rooted in customers’ grandparents’ eras. Their day is passing.
So yeah, if you cherry-pick stores generations past their prime, you’ll have a list of businesses coming to their natural end.
One word:
E-Commerce
Although a lot of this is due to the online retail trend, it is still alarming to see such stalwart institutions shuttering so many stores.
But even giant Montgomery Ward closed in better times.
I don’t see how retail stores stay open. The amount of regulation, taxes, liability, theft, employees, stock on hand, utilities, rent, etc etc one requires makes it unlikely that you could ever compete with online retailers who have the product delivered to your door usually at a lower price. You have to pay all of that even when you are not profitable in the store.
It appears that online retailers have all the advantages.
Lots of people go to stores to look at things then buy them for the best prices on the Internet because money is so tight.
The local gun shops are doing real well. ;) Just saying...
I’ve been predicting the collapse of a lot of malls since 2007. It took long enough...
One word. “Amazon”.
I was surprised by the empty spaces on the shelves in a recent Walmart visit. The only area that seems to be improving is ammo; some areas such as electronics seem to be maintaining stock, pet food stocks were down, with decreased variety in the pet area, and some of the food areas were in need of re-stocking, while produce has been re-arranged to put less in a larger area.
Despite my comments about electronics, they didn’t have what I wanted, and I ended up going to Best Buy, another dying chain where selection is down, but they had what I needed.
Real estate TAXES make brick and mortar expensive. Failed governments need those taxes to pay their bloated welfare benefits and lavish retirement to public workers.
he’s saying that a big store has purposefully not stock shelves so rural people can’t get supplies?.....sounds ridiculous but who knows....maybe part of the big “plan”....
Why fight traffic, smelly people, lines, surly clerks and high prices?
Exactly, government policies of excessive taxation and burdens such as required worker healthcare, workers comp, etc all lead to companies moving away from brick and mortar and full time employees to ecommerce. Once again, the greedy government forces people to "change", that's the kind of change Obama meant. One must change to avoid harassing government policies.
It is difficult for wilding yutes to shoplift from Amazon.
“It appears that online retailers have all the advantages.”
Yep,and they have made it very easy.
About 90% of my shopping is now done on-line.
With the LL Bean cc you can ship both ways free. In other words,buy several sizes,try them on,and ship back what doesn’t fit.
Zappos does this also.
Amazon has everything else I need.
.
online shopping is for some items that are relatively problem free....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.