Posted on 12/20/2024 12:45:21 PM PST by yesthatjallen
Party City, a longtime retailer and go-to source for many of party supplies, is closing all its stores and going out of business, according to a report from CNN.
Company CEO Barry Litwin told corporates employees in a meeting Friday the company is "winding down" operations and and today was their last day working there, CNN reported.
The retailer had more than 850 locations in the United States, according to its website, and had been in business for more than 30 years.
“It’s really important for you to know that we’ve done everything possible that we could to try to avoid this outcome,” Litwin said, according to the report. “Unfortunately, it’s necessary to commence a winddown process immediately.”
Litwin just joined the company in August and at the time said, "I see many opportunities to strengthen our financial performance and build a leading end-to-end celebration experience for consumers."
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnewyork.com ...
guess the party is over.
I always liked that store, especially at Hallowe’en.
Cue up Don Meredith....................
Indeed.
COVID casualty....gathering limitations, contact tracing, etc
Oh no! I buy stuff there all the time.😥
Seems that it’s been overwhelmed by the competition in a saturated retail market. They certainly had a good run.
If they could specialize to some particular consumer market, they might live on, albeit in a much smaller corporate form, and probably under a different or modified name.
Amazon is certainly a cause, too. Drive to a brick-and-mortar store, and you might find what you want. Might not.
Go to Amazon, they’ll be 50 different varieties of just what you’re looking for. And I hate to have to say that, as I want to buy local.
Big Lots shutting down .Bought a lot there over last 40 years,less since they made furniture the focus.
Nobody likes a party pooper....
Lots of businesses that sell non-essential stuff will be failing because the consumer is largely tapped out and indebted after years of painful inflationary pressures. People are struggling just to pay for the daily necessities of life.
Ah, great minds always think alike around here (or maybe we’re all just old). When I read that headline the first thing I thought of was, “Turn out the lights, the party’s oooooover.”
The dollar store has enough supplies to get people through any party they need.
Saw a headline today stating that Trump will be inheriting a great economy. I just had to laugh.
In some cases perhaps it was due to less gathering during Covid. In smaller markets, that Covid Effect may be quite damaging, because there would be no nearby competitor to conduct a “Price War” with, thus attracting more consumer attention. Ask any Gas Station.
Then they used the same gambit to export the electronics business, claiming that outfall water clean enough to drink was too contaminated because it contained "detectable levels" (so that Wall Street could cash in on cheap labor). They cited "the service economy." It was obvious that wouldn't last any longer than it would take to bring up the Internet to destroy retail box stores (which took about a decade longer than I expected).
Then it was going to be software. "Learn to code" they said. Here comes AI.
Now what?
Well, I have an industry in mind that is uniquely resistant to AI and robotics, and a way to make the clowns that drove this mess pay for it, using their own environmental regulations against them: Native plant habitat restoration and mobile quasi-nomadic land management services I wrote about in Natural Process almost 25 years ago. The work does have to be done or we will kill the microbial foundations for productive soils of which we understand very little, not to mention the insect associations of which we have lost 75% by mass.
Yes, I know, a lot of it is dirty and hard work (I've been doing for 35 years), but it is also both immensely rewarding and intellectually demanding. It sure as hell doesn't mean we have to live in tents and the job will probably take over a century. The huge amount of what we don't know maeans that the only way it can be realistically accomplished is a private property free-enterprise model. It does mean that there is a LOT of technology to develop. You can learn more at wildergarten.org (/shameless plug).
Party City soon to be replaced by Spirit Halloween...
All the companies that fed Big Lots went bankrupt or ordered a lot less stuff, so they would have less to liquidate when it didn’t sell.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.