I rarely use on-line shopping superstores like Amazon. If I can’t find it in the store, such as Wal-mart, Pennys, Sears. Lowes, etc., I will go to their Web store to search for it and order it to be delivered to the local store. With clothes it is essential as I can make sure the size, fit, colors, etc. are correct and what I ordered.
Also, I pay with cash rather than credit or debit. I see the cashless society as one of the greatest threats from the NWO. Currently, I pay less than a fourth of all purchases or bills with a credit card and never use a debit card. I try to use cash and checks to ensure that vendors don’t move to the cashless society.
Millenials don’t buy clothes other than pajamas. The market is saturated. People are realizing they don’t need to buy stuff to feel better. A whole bunch of reasons.
Online hit the tipping point.
The basic retail enviornment is way overbuilt. I read an indepth report on this about three or four years ago and it is now coming up. Way too many stores and the companies kept expanding when they should not have.
Example; Walmart would build in clusters, say at least three stores in a 10 mile radius. Their theory is while existing stores would see s decrease in sales, in the cluster they would increase. Want to meet the genius who came up with that.
In any event all the major retails stores over expanded to the tune of say 1 Million more square feet of retail space than actually needed. SO what we are seeing is a long overdue thinning of the herd. One of the reasons I will avoid REIT’s as in investment right, especially in commercial area.
Amazon.
Ebay.
Maybe people are just maxed out on stuff.
I know I need to shop less and less. I already have everything I need and my want list gets smaller all the time. If something breaks I replace it or go without.
The only thing I need occasionally are some new shoes, underwear, maybe a new accessory but I don’t even buy a lot of clothes. Most of my clothes are pretty timeless so I don’t have to buy new every season. I also shop at consignment stores, thrift stores and garage sales (for older garden tools not made in China)
Lots of people have no money to spend. The more single moms we have the more poverty America has.
To figure this one out does not take JP Morgan.
Over built and online shopping.
Little towns in the west that were once just quaint communities all look alike now with the same gaggle of big box stores and restaurants.
Every time I take a chance going to town looking for something I end up coming back home and ordering it because I CAN’T FIND IT AT THE STORES IN TOWN!!
While the quick and easy answer is online shopping, my wife is a real shopper, and she makes very good points about why retailers are having problems.
1. The selections are terrible and completely out of season. They are doing swimsuits in January in Ohio, heavy coats in August. Her appraisal of places like Sears and Nordstroms is very low.
2. There is very little help and almost no one to take your money in these stores. Countless times I’ve gone into a Kohls and had to run all over the store to find a register open. Just try to find someone to ask a question.
3. While online is convenient IF you know exactly what you want and are sure of the size, in both men’s and women’s clothes, sizes don’t mean much. I’ve gone into a dressing room with 3-4 different pants the same exact size. Some fit, some are way too small, some are too big.
4. Texture: even if you can see what you want on line, you never really know how something feels till you try it on.
My point is, these stores are having trouble, not because there isn’t a demand for them, but because they are performing badly as a business.
If I go to a mall twice in a year, it’s a lot. I can recall going once in the last year, and the place was all but deserted.
I buy my wine from two sources now: my local winery, and online from my favorite winery in Germany. Even with shipping, I’m paying about 40% of retail, and they ship to my door. Both wineries have award winning wines, and they’re both very customer friendly.
Twenty-five years ago if you went to twenty stores looking for a backpack or a notebook or a set of kitchen pans you would see thirteen or fourteen different styles made by various brands to choose from. Now you may see three brands.
You have to go online for product differentiation.
Deep state cooking the books to make Trump look bad.
Obama weaponized every facet of government just like IRS, EPA, and Justice.
Eight years of economic depression will be the reason for the current retail blow out.
Duh level analysis way over the head of the author.
FREE SHIPPING.
Interesting post
In Maryland:
Columbia mega Mall is struggling, Sears, Macys, plus ~ 10 empty store fronts.
Towson and Anne Arundel mega malls seem fine.
Absolutely mobbed with people. No abandoned store fronts.
” But GDP has been growing for eight straight years, gas prices are low, unemployment is under 5 percent, and the last 18 months have been quietly excellent years for wage growth, particularly for middle- and lower-income Americans.”
None of this is true. It’s all right up there with “shovel ready jobs.” People were laid off employment and couldn’t find jobs. When they no longer were illegible to continue collecting unemployment, they drop out of the statistics entirely so the unemployment rolls are laughably inaccurate. GDP was likewise fictional. Obama undermined every possibility of economic recovery and we were in free fall. It’s against the MSM’s religious principles to accurately reveal what Obama did to the economy or that we just can’t snap out of it as quickly as we’d like.
Quality in clothing, shoes, textiles of every description - it all went downhill. And then the magazines and online stores took over.
From the outright boycotts of stores like JC Penney, Target, Macy’s etc. and our “Going Galt” the past eight years to not feed the beast under Obama, all of this had to take its toll and the retail stores were destined for the inevitable cutbacks and closures.
The majority of the closures were struggling for years, using poor advertising schemes, and already on the chopping block. Technology also requires changes in venue and strategy to stay viable.
My household is almost 100% online shopping now. Even on Sundays, packages are getting delivered. You can’t really say retail is down without adding in online retail. Recently we’ve started having groceries delivered (Blue Apron). So far, so good.