My business associate who has done a lot of business with Sears and Kmart for years, a former Sears insider in fact, has been adamant that they’re not going under, that is until last week. He now says they’re done. Programs dwindling to nothing, not restocking.
These stories come out every January like clockwork. Last year it was Sears. Year before it was JC Penny. Before that it was Best Buy
Boutique type stores in upscale areas, e. g., Anthropologie, seem to be doing just fine.
They seem to be the kind of stores that fit just fine into renovated buildings in gentrified areas.
The Pearl District in Portland, for example, used to be an industrial part of town.
I don’t believe store closures could be worse than they have been under Obama’s reign.
I hope Donald IMMEDIATELY makes a major statement (or at least in the next 20 days!) on any well-known chains, stores and malls going kaput so he doesn't get hung with these demises around HIS neck instead of the scrawny neck of Barak Insane Obama.
Leni
It’s interesting that some find online shopping as odd?
Especially when you consider the history of mail order.
I am saying this as someone who has ordered about 3 things online.
A perfect opportunity for some visionary to make malls into housing..either low cost or high end...Or else we are going to have a lot of empty buildings in our Country.
Indeed, the major railroads are storing a lot of locomotives and freight cars, knowing that once the economy improves, they will all be back in service. This is especially true of coal transport, which could be booming by middle 2018.
The fact that our economy was going to survive on retail and service was a joke that nobody with half a brain believed anyway. The free traitors and globalists sold the masses a bunch of crap. The Dollar Store employees can’t even afford the $10 toaster now as they spend any disposable income getting to their 4 jobs.
Ebay and Amazon dont deliver burgers..so why are Burger Kings closing? The one a block from me has been bulldozed!Great location was always busy. So why??No more chicken fries and the best chocolate milkshakes!Barbaric!!
I very much like Sears. Bought a riding lawnmower,bought new washer dryer set, bought new sliding doors,bought a new heat pump. Never set foot in the local store. Quality service, never had to get out of my chair except to answer the door.
Internet sales are the future, not paying thousands per square foot in static rental cost.
I live in the shadow of Seattle. we see a mixed bag. Amazon and Costco are doing very, very well. As for the area malls, demographics is everything. Southcenter Mall south of town, a shooting gallery. Bellevue Square/ “The Bellevue Collection” is expanding like crazy. Among the highest sales per SF in the US. It draws from Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland, etc...upscale bowling alley, restaurants up the yazoo. Twenty years ago you could fire bullets in a circle at midnight outside the mall and no one would be injured. Now from 8:00 PM on it looks like a football game exodus.
I just bought Kirkland organic olive oil from Amazon because all the brands in the stores are fake.
And a visit to Wal-Mart is like a trip to Somalia.
Why build new churchs, prisons,libraries, courthouses or govt. offices. Just wait a few years and set up shop at the local mall.
Capitalism. I love it. If they cannot compete with online then they deserve to die.
No one is too big to fail
From what I saw in my one breif foray to town during Christmas shopping time I’d say that brick and mortar are dead men walking. What I saw was outright depressing. Just a lot of empty. They aren’t even keeping the store fronts up to par. Lights out, dirty, dishelved and generally seedy in some cases.
Academy seemed to be OK but Dick’s Sporting Goods is dead, just over priced.
The mall was dismal.
I bought all my stuff online.
We are in for a huge change in this country and were without or without barky. I don’t know what people are going to do for jobs and the jobs there are don’t pay living wages. I don’t care what minimum wage is. A man can’t live on 10 to 12 an hour let alone feed and care for a family. Just impossible to expect it.
What happens next?
Interesting, because they're fixing to build a new second CVS in our town, about 2 miles from the first one. There are two more in two adjacent towns, less than 5 miles from the new one.
Whoever invents a simple, reliable way to virtually try on clothes will become an instant billionaire and will put the final nail in retail’s coffin.