Posted on 01/22/2014 1:59:17 PM PST by EBH
Get ready for the next era in retail—one that will be characterized by far fewer shops and smaller stores.
On Tuesday, Sears said that it will shutter its flagship store in downtown Chicago in April. It's the latest of about 300 store closures in the U.S. that Sears has made since 2010. The news follows announcements earlier this month of multiple store closings from major department stores J.C. Penney and Macy's.
Further signs of cuts in the industry came Wednesday, when Target said that it will eliminate 475 jobs worldwide, including some at its Minnesota headquarters, and not fill 700 empty positions.
Experts said these headlines are only the tip of the iceberg for the industry, which is set to undergo a multiyear period of shuttering stores and trimming square footage.
Shoppers will likely see an average decrease in overall retail square footage of between one-third and one-half within the next five to 10 years, as a shift to e-commerce brings with it fewer mall visits and a lesser need to keep inventory stocked in-store, said Michael Burden, a principal with Excess Space Retail Services.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
I don't think so. Seating capacity at the Roman coliseum was between 50-80k. Still an amazing fact, but certainly not 385k!
Mannix does not cite a source for his seating capacity of 385,000. Circus Maximus was much larger than the Coliseum, 2,000 feet long and 400 feet wide, more like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which seats 250,000.
Wiki says 150,000 seating capacity for Circus Maximus.
I am so sorry to hear about your sales crashing.
In my case it is fortunate my nephew is young and looking for work. He receives unemployment which will pay the bills until he gets a job. My SS doesn’t start until May. So, I say prayers, but they’re not for me as others, I know, are worse off.
That is exactly how I feel.
I am not a gadget person. We don’t have cable TV; in fact, we don’t watch TV at all. I haven’t seen a movie in years as I love to read.
I am making the same ‘desperate’ type choices, especially with the cold snaps we are having.
That said though, as I have spoken with several accountants and reset the budgets, some how I still need to come up with another $500 to account for new expenditures mandated by the government(and that is not just due to 0bamacare).
My accountant actually told me...don’t hire this year. I agreed to revisit the hiring equation in the second quarter. If this tsunami is true...it will be a good thing we did NOT file the paperwork yet.
but...that still isn’t going to resolve a $500 per month shortfall either.
Article also spoke of the DEATH of the Indoor Mall!
My wife buys stuff on line from them. Usually anything over $50 is free shipping. They tell you it will take about 5 working days for delivery. The last 3 deliveries arrived in less than 24 hours. Don’t know how they do this.
Seriously, the withdrawal from all of the stuff would be tough but it can be done and I am willing to do it if necessary.
Good advice by your accountants IMO. I would like to have made two of my part-timers full time but instead cash flow pointed to the need to lay one off. The work is there but no comfortable level of guarantee of income more than a couple of months out. We all need to do what we need to do to survive so I’ll just work a few more hours.
One thing I have noticed is that my budgetary classifications listing is sure a lot shorter than it was two or three years ago.
I wish I had a few more hours to put into my work.
Sigh...so instead I’ll pray and look up and give thanks for what I can do.
Proverbs 13:22
I wish I had a few more hours to put into my work.”
Thanks for the scripture verse. It’s either sleep or work. It’s amazing how little sleep I have found I can get by on, with a lot of help from God.
Send everyone back to school, the obvious solution to a decline in retail employment is for all those people to earn a master’s degree in sociology or women’s studies or perpendicular pontification.
Are you selling any gold rings?
Gosh, it’s a shame I wasn’t invited, I wanted to go to Michelle’s party even more than I wanted to go to my own necktie party.
I remember when you could go to the Sears Roebuck catalog and buy almost anything from a house to live in to traps for trapping your own fur animals to frames to cure the hides on to guns to shoot anything from sparrows to elephants, the list is endless. You could almost have said that if they didn’t have it you didn’t need it.
Tomorrow's Section 8 housing....
I won't be sad to see them go.
Twenty years ago, or probably more, someone re-published the first Sears and Roebuck catalog as well as one or two others.
And you are correct, from complete house kits freighted to your location, pages upon pages of rifles, shotguns, handguns, ammo, and reloading tools. Even ghilly suits. All manner of farm equipment, musical instruments, clothing from skin to shoes.
Truly an amazing emporium that must have seen magical at the time. Really the model on which Amazon is based.
Somewhere I have the original copy and one other.
You made me curious to see if the re-print of the original Sears and Roebuck Catalog was still available.
Amazon (natch) has it for $13.88
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602390630?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links
Also available are the Sears Home Builder’s Catalogue of that era as well as a Montgomery Ward one.
Darn, you’ve just reminded me of my late dad laughing over the product copy for a 25 cent hammer.
Went something like this:
This is our cheapest hammer. It’s not very good but will do in a pinch. See our better and best hammers that are still bargains.
As I recall there are quite a few other copy gems like it throughout the pages. Darn things also make a good preppers list of things to have in a world without juice.
No, no gold rings.
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