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Exactly. Most of these are the "Express" convenience-type stores--a new (and very limited) business model for them that wasn't successful. Macy's, on the other hand, is following last year's closings of 40 stores, with about the same number of additional closings this year.
Including the only Macy's in my 300,000+ population county. Kind of sad, wish they hadn't bought May Department stores.
You are not getting the best price/quality. Walmart never, ever, ever has sales. Unless products are ruined beyond use.
Food? Grocery stores hammer them. Consumer goods? Way cheaper on Amazon. And the quality of stuff in Walmart even the same product, is crap. Just crap.
You want to pay more and get crap? And ruin your town? Shop at Walmart. Or worse, Dollar General.
Look folks, the choice is yours. I don't shop at Walmart mostly because the stuff there is garbage and I can't afford to waste money buying overpriced groceries. Grocery stores are much cheaper and at the same time better quality for food. And Kohls has way cheaper clothes. For home goods I wait for sales at Sears. I am mystified as to why Walmart got so far. Bottom line: if you are a fan of Walmart, you have been tricked. You are paying more, getting less, all while ruining the community.
What? I think you have Kohl's confused with somewhere else. Kohl's is EASILY two to three times as expensive on clothing, unless they are having a 70% off everything sale plus you have a 30% off coupon AND Kohl's cash.
And I HATE shopping at Walmart, so I'm certainly not a shill for them!
Or so they say. There is a lot of public relations spin that goes on when a company has a downsizing and lays off workers. They will say what they need to say in order to keep a favorable view in the public eye and to do publicity "damage control". They are under absolutely no legal obligation to retain any of the laid off workers by offering them other jobs at other locations, that's why they always add "if there are positions open". And while they say they want to increase employees wages, they may or may not actually do that.
They are just trimming fat at this point; they just got greedy and overbuilt and needed to stay out of the "express" format. My biggest problem with it is that they will leave the vacant buildings empty blights on the landscape, like they always do. We have an empty Wal-mart eyesore that has sat vacant with weeds growing in the parking lot for over 15 years when they moved 3 miles down the road to build a Supercenter. They should be forced to raze the buildings they abandon and return the land to it's former state. Chances are, they were given all kinds of tax breaks and goodies from the local government to build the dang things in the first place.
Walmart rarely, if ever, owns their buildings, so they really have no say about what happens to them when they close a location.
Walmarts guidance for 2016 indicated there were be additonal cost associated. I think most thought it was related to wage increases. It looks like it was severance packages. At the time of the announcement I thought it odd. ( manner of accounting ).
Walmart Express was a failure. The conversion of those stores to NM apparently didn't fare much better. My guess is that they are too small to be scalable for an acceptable grocery store.
Yes--someone had a bright idea--someone who really never worked in a WalMart store likely but did have a new MBS and wanted to create an impression--
Maybe Walmart had too much money after the recession sent people shopping there in droves and had people buying their stock and didn't want to pay taxes so they thought they could get into a better class of neighborhood with the smaller "upscale" stores...
That was bad idea and I guarantee you the original Mr. Sam would have shot that idea down real quick
The new board/admin honchos are losing touch with what brought that firm into cutting edge retail...
Maybe the family wanted to get even richer...
So much for the lie that the economy is growing.....
There is no spin to this. In Walmart's case it is mostly a failed program and failing stores. Macy's is seeing that too. Nothing about the economy on the whole isn't growing...
People with no background of retailing and how it works don't understand that large major chains like Walmart, will close stores every year, just as they open new ones every year. It depends on if the store is profitable or not. Lets look at the reasons that make a store no longer practical at that location.
1---Stores wear out and need replaced. Scooby Snacks in the post above made this observation about those closing in Houston. They are often located in a shopping center that has deteriorated away from being attractive and people quit shopping there and move on to other shopping centers. When their lease is expiring merchants close instead of signing a new lease. They will open another one, in a new area.
2---Changes in the area around the store. Some areas in a city may deteriorate, and people quit going to it to shop. When their lease runs out, the stores close and move to where the shopping masses have moved.
3---They want to have a bigger store, so they close the old one at the end of their lease, and open a new bigger and better store.
Walmart is in a 3 year planned upgrading mode right now. They are improving stores, and building bigger and better stores. They are spending 1 billion dollars a year in the U.S. to upgrade their stores. They are hiring more people, and more manager positions are opening up. They are just one chain, that is upgrading and improving.
Pay. Walmart has moved their minimum wages up to $10 an hour, to attract workers. They are in the top tier of large department stores as far as wages and benefits go. The majority of the big fancy name retail stores do not pay as well.
People complain about Walmart sells things from China. Have they ever gone to an upscale department store and looked at their labels. They also sell things from China. They also often sell the exact same item be it major department stores or Walmart. The difference is, Walmart sells it cheaper. Example: LED55G55R120Q 55 inch RCA television. Walmart price---$449.99 Sears price---$649.99. Exact same TV model $200 different in price. Of course some of you may not like to save $200 on such a purpose, but a lot of people do. People who yell about Walmart quality and it all comes from China, don't realize how often they same things are for sale at both Walmart and the major chain stores around the country. Only difference is Walmart sells it cheaper.
And you can go to things like Levi Jeans, and Wrangler Jeans. Go to Walmart, Sears, and Macy's, and the only thing that sets them apart is Walmart is cheaper than Sears, and Sears in cheaper than Macy's.
Fact: The top 3 designer label manufacturers also have their clothing made overseas, with the majority made in Bangladesh, which is below China in the economic world.
I spent my first 10 years out of the navy working in Retail, and my final year 1971 before entering the real estate business as an investment broker. Always furniture, appliances, and Electronics. Within a year after leaving the navy in 1954, I was earning $125,000 plus in today's dollars. I managed and did the buying for retail stores. I spent 4 years in one of the finest Department stores in the nation, and earned over $125,000 a year in today's dollars back then, when the clerks were earning minimum wages. Furniture, major appliance, carpet and electronic department were on commission, and we all earned way more than even the assistant store manager.
I was brought in to find why 2 stores were not profitable, and recommended we close both after an evaluation which was done. A major chain store company that never closes stores, will be going under in a few years. It just shows bad management.
You are not getting the best price/quality. Walmart never, ever, ever has sales. Unless products are ruined beyond use.
Food? Grocery stores hammer them. Consumer goods? Way cheaper on Amazon. And the quality of stuff in Walmart even the same product, is crap. Just crap.
You want to pay more and get crap? And ruin your town? Shop at Walmart. Or worse, Dollar General.
Look folks, the choice is yours. I don't shop at Walmart mostly because the stuff there is garbage and I can't afford to waste money buying overpriced groceries. Grocery stores are much cheaper and at the same time better quality for food. And Kohls has way cheaper clothes. For home goods I wait for sales at Sears. I am mystified as to why Walmart got so far. Bottom line: if you are a fan of Walmart, you have been tricked. You are paying more, getting less, all while ruining the community.
Your statements are unfortunately skewed by your opinion of Walmart.
They don't post sales because they don't run their business the same way as stores like Kohls which use sales to lure the customers into the store. It does NOT mean kohls has a better price even while they are running a sale.
Returns usually cannot be resold as new so I'm not sure what you refer to by selling something that is "ruined beyond use".
Walmart does "rollbacks" which is like a sale but they negotiate a lower cost with the vendor in order to get the lower cost and these are temporary in nature and typically cheaper than what you might find on sales elsewhere.
Amazon can be cheaper because they don't have the huge fixed costs of brick and mortar stores and warehouses all over the country but where Amazon remains unbeatable is the fact that most states remain tax-free for purchases.
Not sure how the quality can be significantly worse if it's the same product although I've heard some big box stores use inferior quality parts in the items they sell but the model numbers are slightly different.
I'm not a fan of Walmart, however they did not get to be the largest corporation in America by "tricking" people. They are trying to respond to public desires by offering organic products and are trying to pay for the employee raises without raising prices. I do respect the company and if you ever pay attention to any disaster look at who delivers the first shipment of humanitarian aid. In most cases, it's Walmart.
They are run by very smart people who know everything about each neighborhood for every store. They know exactly how profitable the stores are.
Last edited by gunslinger256; 01-17-2016 at 03:51 PM..
If there is no noxious gas, canaries can sing a long time...
WalMart had a failed experiment in a new shopping model--they tried to eat up even MORE retail than they normally do and yes--likely the economy has lot of options for spending money--some people didn't want to spend at WalMart--
They screwed up---
They don't care---it comes off their tax side and people who know how to price the stock will know why it will actually IMPROVE their bottom line vs mean a death by thousand cuts
Employees who are considered "good workers" will be offered work at another store--
Employees who weren't will be let go...
Simple as that...
WalMart is very good at cutting its losses...
Starbucks wants to implement MAJOR expansion in China--where supposedly the bottom is falling out--
Do you think that will make people less or more likely to buy Starbucks' stock???
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