Three Hundred Retail Store Closures Announced In One Day (money, stores, jobs)
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It's not Amazon's fault. If blame HAS to be assigned, blame the internet. Times have changed. If it was profitable for a store to stay open, it would do so. But if you're not getting the foot traffic, because PEOPLE would rather shop online...then that's how it goes.
When's the last time you heard a blacksmith complain about not making enough horseshoes
these days, since everyone is driving those newfangled cars?
Times change.
The difference is there was less of a demand for horseshoes, but there is still a demand for shoes, bras, etc.
Sticking with VS, the corporate bean counters decided to cut cost via quality and materials, thinking the brand name alone would be fine, and well, it was the wrong decision. There still is a demand for bras and panties, but people are not going to fork over prestige pricing for low quality goods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
Trends change. Fashions change, behavior changes. The current top dogs will eventually give way too.
Malls were a thing from the 60s to the early 2000s. Their day is done, but retail still exists. It's just different, and no it is not all online by a long shot.
Yea, I think malls will be aorund, but instead of a city having eight or nine malls, they will have one or two, one being the luxury, the palce to be type, the other being an outlet mall type, number of these of course depends of the size of the city, wealth, etc.
Aventura Mall here in Miami is not hurting at all, neither is Bal Harbor. But the days of there being a mall on every block is over.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mike1003
When lazya$$ people can sit in their recliners and order everything, who needs brick and mortar stores?
Food to your door instead of walking the aisles, hell, why is the avg American so fat?
I think it really says something about you if you think shopping is some form of exercise, lol.
Amazon doesn't sell anything, so that's not even possible.
What Amazon does, is provide a platform for Millions of other businesses to market, advertise and sell their products.
Why should I go out of my way to the nearest PetsMart and pay $46 for a box of Greenies for my dog, when I can sit in the comfort of my own home and buy Greenies from another company who sells them for $27?
I'm not buying them from Amazon, I'm buying them through Amazon.
Apparently you don't understand the difference.
...........................
Amazon is fantastic, because it coerces competition.
I'm no longer limited to buying locally. If local retailers don't have what I want, I'll find it somewhere else on Amazon, and if local retailers don't have the price I want, I'll find it cheaper on Amazon.
If corporations can't deal with that, that's not my problem, especially since I don't give a damn if corporations exist or not, and corporations aren't necessary for a successful economy.
Except that Amazon does sell things. Unless it indicates "3rd party seller", it's being sold by Amazon. Do they manufacture the items? Typically not but they are buying them and re-selling them. Hence they are indeed selling things. Furthermore, the Amazon Basics line is their house brand and has expanded from keyboards to electronics, food, and clothing etc. There is no argument that they aren't selling those items.
I still can't understand for the life of me why people buy clothes online. If they don't fit, I have to mail it back to them. I hate dealing with taping up the box and printing out a new shipping label, then bringing it to the post office and potentially *I* have to pay for the shipping cost. I'd much rather buy from the website as long as I can return it back to their store, and as long as the store is close enough to my house.
I am not quite sure why all this news gets hyped all the time. You snooze you lose.
Sorry to be so direct but these businesses need to learn that technology, innovation and marketing are now the cornerstones of today's business. It is not something to think about at the end of the year. You need a small group of people within these company's that work to see the changing trends and make adjustments.
JC Penney introduced appliances in their line up a few years back........who did not see that mistake that coming.
All those board members sitting around the room at Blockbuster. You can't tell me that not one of those guys or gals was not thinking that this new service called Netflix was a game changer?
Garman and Tom Tom, guess what, your sales are down because of smart phones not because you did anything wrong......if they did not see it coming it is their mistake.
Sony point and shoot cameras, same thing....cell phones have replaced the need to carry a camera.
Today to succeed in business you have to look to the future for the payout, not today.
We Baby Boomers are fading away and so is the demand for Harley Davidsons, American Beer and our penchant brand loyalty. We are the children of parents who shopped at Sears for everything from tough skin jeans to diehard battery's. Now the shift is to online sales.
Last month there was great discussion on Apple phone sales as they were down. Well when the smoke cleared the current market is saturated with android and Apple phones and unless there is some sort of technology that will blow us away sales are going to stabilize.
The ability to mine social data successfully to spot trends is most likely the greatest tool to future business models and their ability to stay relevant.
As far as Tesla goes, they took nearly a half a million deposits on vehicles they had not figured out to manufacture with a profit. Years ago they sold swamp land in Florida as retirement communities
This is all said in hindsight. AT THE TIME, how would any of these companies know new competition would take them over?
I remember when the first iPhone came out, BlackBerry ruled the smartphone market and they thought it was no big deal; that's why they stuck with the keyboard and didn't improve their touchscreens. Even they were surprised at how popular the iPhone became, and BlackBerry tried to catch up but failed.
Gap updated their logo to a more modern look and there was so much uproar that they changed it back. But other companies who update their logos keep it. You never know how people will receive any changes your company makes.
It's not Amazon's fault. If blame HAS to be assigned, blame the internet. Times have changed. If it was profitable for a store to stay open, it would do so. But if you're not getting the foot traffic, because PEOPLE would rather shop online...then that's how it goes.
I still can't understand for the life of me why people buy clothes online. If they don't fit, I have to mail it back to them. I hate dealing with taping up the box and printing out a new shipping label, then bringing it to the post office and potentially *I* have to pay for the shipping cost. I'd much rather buy from the website as long as I can return it back to their store, and as long as the store is close enough to my house.
To many people, packing it up and mailing back is no issue, takes a few minutes of their life to do, well worth the savings and variety a person can get from shopping online. Lots of people just order from "free return" places, unless a very specific item. And when they order, they order two, three different sizes at once, see which one fits, return the rest.
One reason I hate shopping at stores is the stupid customer service, as in them bothering the hell out of you while shopping. It is not their fault, it is the corporate's fault for forcing them to appease that small group who wants to feel special in life by having someone come over to greet them coming and going, and to follow them around pinging them every five seconds if they need any assistance. That and the stupid, constant asking if I want their store card, or to donate to some charity, etc.
Yea, I think malls will be aorund, but instead of a city having eight or nine malls, they will have one or two, one being the luxury, the palce to be type, the other being an outlet mall type, number of these of course depends of the size of the city, wealth, etc.
Aventura Mall here in Miami is not hurting at all, neither is Bal Harbor. But the days of there being a mall on every block is over.
Yup, that is exactly what's happening. Malls that double as entertainment districts for the middle & upper-middle class are going okay - the anchors are now theatre-pubs and restaurants; the shopping is secondary. Only so many of those are needed per 100k population, but we see enough of those in successful metro areas. Ie: Nordstrom is still located at a lot of these and doing okay.
The malls that are dying either used to be lower middle or working class malls/shopping parks. Not only online shopping has hurt them but when big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target became mini-malls with multiple stores, and also retail parks located in the same parking area as the Wal-Mart, that also cut into the mall market share.
Then the others are in areas that are dying - either where the business district has shifted to a new location or in dying areas like small town upper midwest especially. Those areas simply cannot support a lot of retail parks anymore; there is too much competition and a declining population.
Retail can survive, it just can't get ever-bigger. In the 70s through the 90s the retail trend was more & bigger, then bigger still. Those days are over. Even Wal-Mart is trying to get more compact. There's still room for retail, it just can't sustain massive behemoth infrastructure like it used to. Ie: Barnes and Noble can still exist but it doesn't need stores that are massive units that are two or three story behemoths with 60k square feet of space. They can support sales floors with 15-20k square feet, with an increasing portion of that cafe & leisure space.
I still can't understand for the life of me why people buy clothes online. If they don't fit, I have to mail it back to them. I hate dealing with taping up the box and printing out a new shipping label, then bringing it to the post office and potentially *I* have to pay for the shipping cost. I'd much rather buy from the website as long as I can return it back to their store, and as long as the store is close enough to my house.
I try ordering a clothing item about once a year, it never works out...
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Amazon doesn't sell anything, so that's not even possible.
What Amazon does, is provide a platform for Millions of other businesses to market, advertise and sell their products.
Why should I go out of my way to the nearest PetsMart and pay $46 for a box of Greenies for my dog, when I can sit in the comfort of my own home and buy Greenies from another company who sells them for $27?
I'm not buying them from Amazon, I'm buying them through Amazon.
Apparently you don't understand the difference.
Amazon doesn't make Greenies, it's an entirely different company that makes Greenies, and they sell them to wholesalers and retailers who advertise on Amazon, and the wholesalers and retailers sell them at vastly different prices, as you would expect given the tremendous difference in Cost-of-Living in the US.
If PetsMart can't sell Greenies for $27, that's not my problem, that's PetsMart's problem.
I'm normally attired in blue jeans and buffaloes, but when my water buffaloes blew out, that was a problem, because there isn't anyplace within 400 miles of Cincinnati that sells water buffaloes.
But, thanks to Amazon, I found a small business in New Jersey that sells water buffaloes handmade in India.
So, I win, Amazon wins, and that small business wins, since they got a sale they wouldn't normally get, because New Jersey is a cesspool and I would never go there unless I was shipping or picking up a car at Bayonne or flying out of Newark.
That's what Amazon does, provide a platform for small businesses, because the cost for a small business to maintain its own web-site is probably equal to or greater than the cost to market and advertise on Amazon.
More than that, Amazon gets a lot more traffic in one day than a small business' stand-alone web-site would get in 10 years.
Small businesses can market, advertise and sell their products globally through Amazon, instead of just in their towns. That gives them a greater potential for sales revenues.
Amazon is here to stay, and businesses either need to incorporate Amazon into their business-model or account for Amazon in their business-model, if they want to survive.
Amazon is fantastic, because it coerces competition.
I'm no longer limited to buying locally. If local retailers don't have what I want, I'll find it somewhere else on Amazon, and if local retailers don't have the price I want, I'll find it cheaper on Amazon.
If corporations can't deal with that, that's not my problem, especially since I don't give a damn if corporations exist or not, and corporations aren't necessary for a successful economy.
Or put differently...."better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone."
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