Posted on 05/07/2017 5:56:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
With more than half of 2017 still ahead, the retail industry is seeing a record-setting pace for bankruptcy filings and store closings — and more are expected in the not too distant future, despite what most consider a healthy consumer.
This tipping point for retail is the result of a number of compounding reasons, but the inability to pay looming, massive debt bills is dealing the final death blow to many.
More online shopping
Yes, more shopping is shifting online in general, and to Amazon specifically, as in-store shopping traffic and sales trends fall for many retailers and shopping centers. Slice Intelligence said 43 cents of every online dollar is spent on Amazon, based on its analysis of millions of email receipts.
However, according to the latest Commerce Department retail sales data, 86 percent of all retail sales (excluding motor vehicles and parts and food service and drinking locations) are still made in physical, brick-and-mortar locations. To be sure, the online versus in-store sales breakdown varies wildly from retailer to retailer.
Less stuff, more experiences
While some shopping is shifting from stores to the web, other spending is being diverted from physical goods, particularly, clothing.
In 2005, 3.6 percent of total U.S. retail sales went to department stores; now it's less than 2 percent, according to government data. Retailers like Macy's and credit card companies have discussed the shift in consumer spending from physical goods to experiences like travel.
Plus, for years now, Americans have been making bigger purchases or investments like their homes, which has paid off for Home Depot and Lowe's.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
The internet is good for hard to find items, but you have to shop around. I needed a replacement glass lid for an very old corningware dish that is no longer made. Amazon had it for 30, but corningware had it for 8. I could never find it in the outlet store.
When something breaks, I make a decision: do I fix this? Replace this? Do I need this?
The majority of the time I'm able to fix what's broken. If I'm not able to, I seriously question whether or not I need that item. The majority of the time I DO NOT so it goes to some form of recycling center and I live without it.
I have a lot less clutter, I have more money in savings (and investments) and not surprisingly, I'm actually happier.
I'm 54, in the final stages of divorce from a 30 year marriage, downsizing everything and I'm finding that the millenials are actually right about ONE THING: material things don't matter. Life Experiences do.
I don't think I'm unique in my "discovery" here and I think to a large degree that's why retail is failing. Amazon and sites like them are incredibly convenient and yes, we're seeing a major shift to online shopping and convenience but what's really happening here is a CONSOLIDATION of the "shopping experience." When someone comes along and figures out how to compete with Amazon, they'll suffer the same fate. That might take awhile but it'll happen --- it always does.
One last comment: the Millenials are also right about SERVICE being the key to the shopping experience. I frequent smaller places (family owned, local places/locally owned, owner works the store, etc..) and I tend to go back to where I receive PERSONALIZED service and am remembered. The Millenials, much as I malign them are right about that too. They shun the large retail establishments and go on Amazon for example because their shopping experience is personalized for them. Small mom and pop shops have learned this lesson pretty well from Amazon. I recently saw a small coffee shop doing free refills and a "points" system for customers simply by tapping their phones using every mobile phone system payment imagineable including ApplePay, Samsungs payment system, Google Pay, etc.. The place is constantly packed and beats the Starbucks down the road.
Maybe those millenials aren't as stupid as I thought after all. Still think they're lazy as shit though.
People more and more browse online, then go to the local brick and mortar to try on shoes/pants/shirts/etc, and immediately return home to purchase online. It’s often cheaper to buy online and with free shipping.......
“On TV, an old Western is on.
They are robbing the Stage.
Is the UPS truck next?”
They were after the cash transfers for banks, etc., as well as the occupants’ money and valuables.
That said, yes, delivery truck hijackings are already happening in places. Raiding of shipping containers on trains has been happening for years.
Also, gets them off public assistance. There’s a lot of pressure against that happening. For instance, the conjured up demand for cheap, imported labor.
Let’s see the last three shopping trips I went to Lowes for, they either no longer carried the item or did not have it in stock. Of the three, I went 2 miles down the road to Home Depot and the rest I had to go to the manufacturer’s website to to the items I needed. Amazon didn’t have the items.
to to = to get
I think the Millenials’ parents were only one generation away from those who had grown up “going without” in the Depression and WW2, and the urge to compensate for previous physical hardships by those grandparents was transformed into an urge by the Millenials’ parents to fill internal voids with tangible things, aided in no small part by endless advertising and (comparatively) easy living.
In contrast, the Millenials have never known a comparable period of physical deprivation, and have instead known the literal and figurative “clutter” of their forebears’ material things...perhaps also seeing them as having eschewed “experiences”, their families—”life itself”—in favor of working their butts off...often (in cases of business failure, layoffs, premature deaths, etc.) for nothing.
A couple months ago, I purposefully went to a large online site to place an order rather than give it to Amazon. Surprise! The item came in an Amazon box with Amazon tape.
Any business that advertises LGBTs gets put on my ban list. Sears is the latest with their two female brides.
Inventory replenishment is a key factor. Martinez and every Sears leader since him has had the right inventory vision. Workers at the bottom have brilliant ideas on how to implement the vision in practical ways.
But middle management, the VPs, assistant VPs, directors, etc sabotage all good ideas. From Sears to Radio Shack middle management rejects good ideas. Middle management is paid based on the amount of money in their budget, and their head count. Good ideas inevitably involve flattening the organization, empowering low level employees to make obvious decisions, and eliminating many levels of middle management. That means making middle managers less numerous, less important and less well paid.
But not all middle management is as bad as Sears, or both top and middle management as bad as Radio Shack.
KMart committed suicide over replacing a gun-toting swell spoken beauty with an angry, ugly anti-gun slob.
JCPenny’s Ackman drove away all the pro-family customers, especially the boomers, by trying to turn Penney’s into Abercrummy and Filth.
Target repeated history because it did not learn from history.
Walmart is an interesting case. In the old Walmart employees had personal responsibility. If they saw something that needed to be done, they did it. They took pride in making a difference in their store. The promotion ladder was based on employees taking personal responsibility to make their store better.
But that has changed. Now, an employee is reprimanded for doing something not in his job description. And his job description is to do what the computer tells him to do; not what his own eyes and ears tell him; and certainly not what the customer wants.
Some FReepers here talk about ads. Well done ads are still effective. Kroger is the best example. Bloombergs idiots went after Kroger on guns. Kroger avoided the KMart mistake and took customers away from Walmart and other competition. But at the same time, Kroger gives money to LBGTQ groups and gets their loyalty. To counteract that, Kroger runs pro-family ads that are very convincing.
Kroger’s prices are far higher than Walmart. Here in Atlanta far higher than the small Fresh Market chain and far higher than the Hispanic stores my wife shops. But their PR/Ad strategy is fooling everybody and showing on a positive bottom line.
Lets see, should I get in my car and drive to a mall, wasting gas and maybe getting into an accident with an uninsured illegal alien in the parking lot , or shot during some islamic terrorist attack, or instead just order everything from Amazon or some other online store with unlimited selection, sizes, and variety, not too mention free shipping and no sales tax.
The choice isn’t hard. Toss in the fact that most of these stores have now decided to get into politics as supporters of faggots and communists, and it’s a no brainer.
Even if the help was competent and helpful, online still wins.
I have a 10-year-old VIZIO LCD TV that still runs great, but several of the buttons on the remote wore out.
Last year the idea hit me to check on Amazon. They had several sellers. I found one remote that resembled what I needed and it was labeled as the exact same model number. It was listed for $6 and free shipping.
It was exactly the same and works great with the TV. I like the old TV because it has Picture-in-picture, which new ones don’t have. PiP is excellent when watching events broadcast at the same time.
During the TX state high school track and field competition, the students would spend their free time at Highland Mall in Austin. They caused so much trouble, the mall was going to completely shut down during that week. Of course, the uber liberal city council told them they couldn’t close. Not that anyone who valued their life went there after dark since it was already getting dangerous what with the bus stops bringing in thugs. We’ve avoided the mall for over a decade. Actually, we avoid Austin.
“...the inability to pay looming, massive debt bills is dealing the final death blow to many.”
I hope Target secured low-interest financing on their recent system-wide bathroom remodeling project...
Nah...just kidding...hope it was in excess of 18%.
Last year a few months before Christmas, I ordered a TV series DVD via Amazon. When it shipped, it was marked for ‘Sunday delivery’.
I chuckled. I am in a small town of 14,000 in the center of fly-over country.
Sunday came and I had forgetten, because I though it would be delay-delivered on Monday. Around noon Sunday, I heard a vehicle noise at by back door. A special Amazon-Post Office vehicle delivered my DVD. I was surprised. A while later, I received another package marked ‘Sunday delivery’ and have seen the vehile in my area a couple of times since.
“Now, it’s hoodied thugs all over the place...”
In the good old days, all you had to worry about was getting run down by a group of gray-haired, senior-citizen mall-walkers getting their daily exercise.
I doubt they still do that because of the new and more youthful threats in the malls.
I sew my own clothes mostly out of necessity. 1) Out here in the boonies, there isn’t much selection and I refuse to drive two hours to the city (liberal hell hole) only to come home with nothing and 2) With the high price of fabric these days, purchasing cheapo fabric at the annual church bazaar is easier on the wallet.
Thankfully, there’s a small Payless shoe store with good sales a couple of towns over so we can still try them on without hoping for the best with online shoes. Payless is closing stores so don’t know what we’ll do if this one goes.
👏👏👏👏
If left wing politics resulted in lower sales then Amazon's stock price would be in the tank. Bezos owns the Washington Post for pete's sake.
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