Posted on 12/30/2008 7:54:41 AM PST by Red in Blue PA
The dismal holiday shopping season may sink some retailers and could take down some U.S. malls struggling with rising vacancies, softening rents and their own large debt loads.
"This is probably going to go down as the worst season in history as far as retail sales," said Victor Calanog, director of research for real estate research firm Reis. "The difficulty of ascertaining what the effect would be at the property level is because we're already heading toward a train wreck."
At the end of the October, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) forecast that national chains would announce 6,100 store closings in 2008 and 3,100 in the first half of 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
We have a winner. We didn't becaome a great country by taking in each others' laundry - we MADE things.
Where will one go to sport a mall-wall ‘do?
Sorry about your misfortune. But thanks for posting a real-life story about what’s going on out there.
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It’ll all be perfectly usable if nothing bad happens. And will be necessary if it does. The cost now is pretty small compared to other things we’re being advised to buy (I figure my 2 year’s of food costs the same as 2 gold coins - and I have much more piece of mind having it!)”
Plus you’ll get a better return on your money than leaving it in a bank.
I’m in Mexifornia. And it is indeed, quickly becoming a 3rd world cesspool. And the illegals that are creating it will soon be in everyone’s neighborhood.
Interestingly, that was probably a more efficient mechanism, and it is still used for pizza.
However, as people did more and more shopping for food (because grocery stores were built closer to their homes, and because cars were more plentiful), it became marginally more efficient for people to pick up their own short-term consumables like bread and milk, when they were purchasing their other groceries.
And since people tend to underestimate the value of their own time, or to discount it, nobody really thinks about the “cost” of driving to the store to get milk, only how much they save by doing so instead of having someone bring it to them.
Service now seems more focused on people providing services TO you, rather than people doing things “for” you. So you have service for cleaning your house, or getting a massage, or fixing your plumbing, but not so much anymore people shopping for you, or delivering to you.
On the other hand, the advent of internet shopping has brought back the “delivery” service. Interestingly, some “forward thinkers” shot a lot of money trying to start this with groceries. Prodigy had an online grocery system where you could buy online and someone would bring it to your door.
Turns out that groceries are about the only thing people aren’t regularly buying online anymore. And when people buy things online, the “delivery boy” puts them on your doorstep — except that’s a world-wide company like UPS or Fed Ex, rather than a real boy hired by the local shop.
My guess now is that, over time, all local stores will be replaced, as the younger generation which is comfortable with buying online supplants those of us who still want to touch things before purchasing.
Of course, I did about 75% of my christmas shopping online this year. I don’t feel it necessary to touch known items on people’s lists, only when I am trying to figure out what I want to buy to I have to touch.
I love shopping, especially to look for clearance bargains, and that certainly will go away with the rise of the internet — it’s too easy for everybody to search for the cheapest stuff, so you are unlikely to get a great deal like you can when some store puts what you want on a clearance shelf because it just happens that nobody else who wants that item has visited the store lately.
Anyway, online shopping is certainly more efficient. Things are stored in bulk where it’s cheap, delivered only when and to where they are needed, and the more things are done this way, the more efficient the shipping becomes, as the truck might spend all day delivering to a single large neighborhood.
Stores like WalMart and Target and some other big-box retailers will survive. I can’t figure out how two bookstores have survived this long, but I expect Borders to be gone soon. Barnes and Noble may survive simply because some people enjoy the ACT of holding books prior to purchase.
But I don’t see how, in the long run, we will keep the mall experience. It’s just too easy to poke a few keys on your computer, and too many people have computers now.
Heck, I can browse the internet and do all my shopping on my Nintendo Wii. So you don’t even need a computer anymore.
Nice deal. Picked up a 42" Dynex 1080p for 699 12/26. Put a four year failure policy on it for another $99. That plus a bunch of other little things, and the guys at Best Buy were treating me like I was royalty or smth. Go figure.
Hey, I want to play, too!
You must be a bitter ex-employee of one of the companies that has an obsolete business model.
Have you ever tried Amazon for groceries?
We live in a rural area and are considering trying it out. There are days when it is just too much for me to shovel out 12 inches of snow, slog to the market, gather up the items, unload the cart, haul the bags to the car, then haul them into the house, etc.
Before you go telling my I am lazy, I have been doing the marketing for 45 years, have arthritis, fibromyalgia, and a husband with Parkinson’s.
I would pay good money for someone to do this weekly chore for me.
It's no different than our regular 'FReeper on the Street' reports on other subject.
Why are comments from FReepers all over the US not reflective of the economy?
I find them very helpful.
You said — “It’s no different than our regular ‘FReeper on the Street’ reports on other subject. Why are comments from FReepers all over the US not reflective of the economy? I find them very helpful.”
Well, they are limited and anecdotal. They don’t have anything associated with them that makes them “comprehensive” (i.e., covering all the data). And, as I’m sure a lot of people know, there are always local variances. There can even be variances that slant things one way or another — just by the very nature of what a FReeper is (i.e., on how they view things or where they live or all sorts of other factors).
This all contributes to “interesting stories” — but not anything related to comprehensive data that one can depend upon for the overall state of the economy.
Data that would really tell the story of how the economy is doing would have to be selected in such a way that it cannot be adjusted or manipulated by attitudes and/or perceptions. “Numbers” which can be verified are the best indicators of these kinds of things. Numbers that are not subject to perception, numbers that can be traced back into the past for comparisons, numbers that can be crunched on computers. It’s “numbers” that we need for this kind of analysis....
Thats it!
I'm becoming a fur trader!
I understand.
I'm in business, and in these uncertain times, I guess I am buoyed by stories of normalcy.
Yes, I did see alot of folks browsing this year, but they weren't going big ticket as in the past.
Indoor malls have fallen out of fashion in much of the country as of late, but they will always be in demand down in Florida. My dad (who lives in the Sunshine State) made the very same point that you just did when we were discussing this.
Yeah, I think there is going to be some serious wailing going on about the “holiday numbers”... LOL...
But, definitely, the interesting thing here, on Free Republic, is how one’s own personal situation (”everything is fine”) is transposed onto the entire economy and that “makes it so...” :-)
And, if the MSM tries to contradict my own personal experiences, I know they’re lying. That’s not necessarily the best attitude for serious analysis...
Thank you for your reply, BTW.
:-)
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