Improvise. Overcome. Adapt.
How long do you suppose until Amazon is seen as a monopoly?
Let me see here, I live in rural area, should I drive 160 miles to the nearest big box store to buy a $40 item or order it online and have it delivered to my front porch? Decisions, Decisions.
It wasn’t all that long ago that local merchants were moaning about Walmart moving in and “monopolizing” everything.
Now, it’s the internet...they’ve even go Walmart worried.
But here’s the deal; America is getting more violent, mall parking lots are almost empty after dark, and not as full as they used to be in broad daylight.
Thanks to muggings, holdups, carjacking, and just plain harassment, people just aren’t going to subject themselves to these danger.
Instead of blaming Amazon (no, I don’t work for them), blame your lawmakers and law enforcement to clean up the criminal element and make the streets safe again.
A whole lot of people would rather go into the stores, see the actual merchandise “in person” rather that a photo on the net. Try on clothes, etc.
After the law, there’s the stores themselves. Rash with political statements, transgender bathrooms, gay clothing, and CEO turning off half their customer base with stupid statements about race, gender, and political affiliation of their customers.
As one segment get’s more obnoxious, it makes the other source more appealing.
Getting what I want, delivered at my door, at a cheaper price means more to me that showing my “diversity” in being some liberal CEO’s “favorite kind of customer”.
The world has gone nuts. Either fight it, or live with it...there are no other choices.
Some businesses may wish to start emphasizing the humanized areas of their service. Meaning, yes a restaurant can use robotized, computerized systems to display a menu, take your order and bring food to the table, but actual people are more complex than that. An actual person can provide eye contact, a friendly attitude, a professional appearance, a item recommendation, spoken with full intonation, vs the metallic robot’s response. A good waiter or waitress also knows when to leave their customer alone. A bad or detached waiter will hover, pester become too friendly or simply vanish for too long.
A customer would be more likely to tip an actual person vs a machine. There is something special about tipping, that I, a very stingy person discovered just a few years ago.
When I leave a tip to someone who has earned it, I feel good about making their shift a little bit better. Giving is a two way exercise, based on need.
There are several factors, intrinsic in the act of human communication, that are difficult if not impossible to replicate with machines. This goes beyond basic task and completion processes.
Amazon has been very good to it’s upper management and larger share holders economy.
How many of those big box stores publicly supported PC causes, allowed transgenders to share women’s restroom and dressing rooms, and dissed President Trump and his family?
Being forced to spend $1800 a month on fake healthcare with a deductible that doesn’t kick in until you’ve reached a high threshold has murdered the retail industry.
Even Belk sold themselves.
Not a problem. All those $15/hr. burger flipping jobs will fill the gap!
Wally World survives
Marauding black teens with their organized group thefts and group “fronting” other gangs have had a huge impact. Christian adults don’t want to see it and certainly don’t want their children exposed. This “keeping it real” behavior has probably impacted theatre attendance as well.
It was the price of gas that made me want to stay home to shop. It wasn’t hard to predict what has happened.
I regularly buy electronic parts from China.
Recently I ordered a small bag of 10 items called DC-DC switchers. 3-5v in and 1.5 - 40 v out adjustable. 90+ percent efficiency.
It cost me less than 5 dollars and included shipping.
Even if some kind of local store had such an obscure item they would have cost 30 dollars each or more.
You can buy nearly anything direct from China with similar savings...people make a good income by buying in-demand items from China and selling locally on internet sales lists like Craigslist.
I am about to try selling/renting medical equipment locally that I have purchased from China.... I used to repair medical electronics for some free clinics so it’s a low-risk venture for me and something that I know.
Obama destroyed 40 million jobs. Nobody said a word.
* More items ordered online, with retail jobs shifting to warehouse jobs.
* Malls killed themselves by considering security racist. When you have to worry about violent flash mobs in the food court and security won’t stop loitering teens harassing people for money or stealing, no one wants to go. Not all malls, but some.
Come November they will rehire for Christmas-Jan returns, retail does this every year, now that summer/school rush is over. They downsize again after returns of unwanted Christmas gifts are over. It’s the way retail business works.
I don’t shop at retail stores, they don’t carry clothing fit for Seniors and quit carrying my shoe size 5.5. I don’t wear street walker ethnic trash at my age.And I’m not shopping for 7 grands and 6 g grands when a Amazon card lets them or parent do the shopping.
I am seeing retailers cutting back on what they have in store and moving slower selling items to online only. Why keep something on the shelves in thousands of locations that will only gather dust until it expires when you can keep just enough of the same item in a central warehouse to meet online orders? I often have people show me pictures of items from their phones asking me if we have it in the store. My usual response is that it is an online item, which they probably expected since the picture is from our website. We are supposed to push ship to store in those cases, but most of those people want to order it themselves. Even when the item is in stock, often they just want to touch it or maybe try it on before going home and ordering it. This also is happening in the pharmacy business. Some insurance companies are pushing online mail order by not covering some basic drugs if you try to use a physical drug store.
Tax reform would solve the retail refugee crisis.
This almost hit me very personally. My father’s retail chain (that he works at, not owns) is going under due to Dilbertish management and he got out by the skin of his teeth - a low-level IT job opened up and he got it.
But if not for that I don’t know if he’d ever have been able to find work again between ageism and the still-crappy job market when his store inevitably closed.