By Blue Bronc, a Trail Mix Contributor
Although we think there is little going on outside of the small dome on the East end of the Mall, there is much else going on.
How would you save retail shopping? The malls? The standalone shops? The big box stores? Even grocery stores?
Right now the retail industry is reporting hundreds of thousands of employees being laid off because the stores they worked at are closing. Big names – gone by the thousands. Little names – gone. High end – gone. Low end – gone.
Online retail is a great thing. You order, you get it and you are happy. Shipping costs have dropped a lot, nothing for certain contracts. Comparison pricing is easy. Returns are so-so.
Want to try it on before buying? Retail yes. Online – good luck.
Has the gaming life changed how we shop? Game world, nothing is physical. You experience only what you think you do. No tactile world.
Retail shopping. Feeling the weave. Know the hand. Know the fit. Know the smell (yeah, some items of online purchase had an aroma that was rough). See. Touch. Smell. Total tactile world.
Where did the original online retailers fail?
Sears, J. C. Penny’s, Wards and several others were the original online retailers. You had their catalogs in your hands. You compared outfit to outfit in each catalog. You ordered, and depending on the warehouse, you could have it in a day or two; delivered for a price or even shipping cost to the store. They sold all brands, including their own. They had distribution systems and warehouses. They had trucks to move goods, and they could deliver and install anything. They had total penetration of markets. And they are failed. Why?
If I had more time left in my life and wanted a PhD I would explore this issue. I know the catalog sales side of the retail side did try early in the Internet era to make it work. Sears went off into a private world which has resulted in its destruction. J.C. Penny’s brought in a CEO who went nuts into some retail world which failed. Wards went down in the time before the Internet.
You have to wonder if Sears, or J.C. Penny’s or even Wards would have become the Amazon of today if their leadership had seen a different path than the one they took? I do think so. Up to the point when Wards brought out a discount chain it was as dominate as Sears. Up to the point when Sears brought in someone who destroyed it by mating with K-Mart it was the dominate of all sales. While those two were failing J.C. Penny’s was doing quite well. And, just as it might be the queen of sales, it brought in a fruitcake to destroy it. Right now it is recovering after dumping the nut. Will Penny’s survive? Maybe, but it needs to answer the question first posed – how will it survive being an online and retail store?
To add something to the punch bowl. Amazon is opening retail stores.
The reason for the question is because retail has been a backstay of American prosperity from the beginning of our country and is the largest employment segment of the economy.
More Posts by Blue Bronc
bb, good question why sears & wards (truly the amazon of their day… could even order a house, Conestoga wagon and probably a mail order bride) didn’t just digitally convert their catalogue and local pick-up distribution outlets when the internet came into view. ripe pickings for those types of business that were good at categorizing… legal world’s law books building lexus nexus comes to mind. the brick and mortar financing and ego enhancing opportunities fed short-sighted greed.
the catalogue was full of many a fantasy…. anybody remember the “man on page 602”?
here’s the song
and here’s the explanation
https://youtu.be/m1lz5MMaOrA
the plot thickens
Trump’s lawyer in Russia probe has clients with Kremlin ties
Marc E. Kasowitz’s clients include Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is close to President Vladimir Putin and has done business with Trump’s former campaign manager. Kasowitz also represents Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, U.S. court records show.
Published on Jun 9, 2017
Bill discusses former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony and the GOP’s attempts to defend President Trump in his Real Time monologue
patd – JC Penny’s was doing more online than others. I ordered from them online almost as much as I do today on Amazon. It was when the board hired an outsider who changed how the entire operation functioned that they went south. Sears was doomed do to old fashioned thinking. Part of the issue all of them had, and this went to grocery delivery and online newspapers is the hardware limitations of the Internet and computers. And, the concept that each order was a cost. There was no integration of online and storefront. I remember a auto parts chain which offered discounts for ordering online and pick up at the store. Great. The online price though was almost the same as the wholesale price for the store, making it very unprofitable for the store. Things like that had to be figured out.
But, the modern era of the Internet is about fifteen years old. Prior to about 2002 most people did not have trust in ordering online, and the physical capabilities of most peoples computers and internet did not support a lot of hard online viewing or ordering. With new versions of Apple IOS and Windows XP, and more powerful computers, better cable systems for internet, online became easier. Today, online is as close as your smart phone.
The one imperfect view is of the future of retail. Will it go away? Will it morph into something like the old catalog stores? Or will we see a new version of retail. Personally I look at the old catalog stores (note the date) as the future. You can see the product, even order for delivery. With large warehousing, such as what Amazon is doing, you could stop by the showroom, place an order and it will be waiting for you when you return home.
bb, another competitor to certain retail stores (maybe even amazon) that’s looming is 3-d printing capability. why fuss with shipping time, costs and inconvenience when one can order the item to materialize almost instantly on your home/business 3dprinter?
same concepts apply to many professions… online discussions with doctors, lawyers maybe even plumbers… medical tests and treatments via cell phones and bodily inserts of chips. all levels of education have already seen such an impact.
The one thing that has bothered me the most was the death of music retailers. I used to be able to drive around Toledo, Ohio and stop at many different record shops. But, over time, all the ones I used to visit closed their doors. I remember visiting Harmony House Records in Grand Rapids and the manager there said, “We’ve been here for over 50 years, we’re not going anywhere.” Not too long after that, all the Harmony House locations closed. The only record shops that I’ve been in the past few years that I’ve liked were the “Amoeba Records” in Hollywood and the “HMV” stores in Toronto and Montreal. Outside of those stores, I’ve had to online shop for any kind of specialty cds.
btw, kudos to cnn for dredging up this goody
https://youtu.be/R5Oe1msJKXg
patd – For a lot of the world, the computer revolution has changed how life functions. Moore’s Law has played an important role in how we live. Behind the scenes life is computer driven. Our lives are computer driven. Many of us rarely escape communications or the workings of computers. Cell phones are tiny computers. Laptops, tablets, desktops, etc. The blasted things are in your watch, your refrigerator, your clock and your car. Efficiency depends on the megahertz clock running the computers. Steady, never varying, those clocks are our lives. If it were not for the clocks computers would not function well if at all.
corey, same here with regard to those wonderful old book shops….
bbronc, which makes the likelihood of more and more grid breakdowns and hackings all that more frightening.
and whither strip malls? in my campaign travels I saw a lot of them boarded up, kept thinking that’d make a nice park if you tore it down
guess Sears etc were like the railroads, which should have become airlines. But they were so in love with railroading they didn’t see themselves as transportation companies. same reason newspapers slow to evolve, blinded by love of their business.
the railroads, which should have become airlines
boss, disagree with you there. just the opposite, we need more mass transit — especially rail — our passenger rail system compared to other developed (even some undeveloped) countries, we suck.
Pogo & Renee are having absolutely no luck with horses this year. Late Scratch: Epicharis
Would you like to pick another with hopes it won’t just head back to the barn instead of racing?
I have to side with Patd about the railroads. Unfortunately with the development of the freeway system, freight was given right of way on the national rails.
I love riding the train. Give me a high speed rail coast to coast with feeder lines to major cities, and you could ditch a great deal of nuisance of air travel plus benefitting the environment.
but PatD, the airlines took the passenger market away from them, customers abandoned them. they could have followed the customers and added air travel to their business
i love rail travel too, but find me a successful line that operates without subsidies. They’re building a high speed line from Orlando to Miami right now, the first privately built and operated in a century — will be an interesting test of whether passenger rail can come back and survive on its own
Craig
Could rail be one of those areas where subsidies are in order, at least until ridership built up to keep prices reasonable? The benefits to the environment alone to keep from massive spewing of jet fuel into the atmosphere would give a possible fund to draw upon.
Who pays retail anyway?
Very interesting topic though. I have heard a number of people say they think traditional grocery stores are on there way out
Jamie, not if DC metro is an example. Heavily subsidized, poorly maintained, chronic shutdowns, long delays — i’ve just about quit using it, now that we have Uber’s reasonable prices. We tried to metro to a nationals game a while ago, and missed the first two innings.
but VRE is great
Craig
That is interesting. When I lived in DC in the late 80s the Metro took me almost everywhere. I just loved it (well other than the fall down the escalator that tore up my shins).
Sorry to hear that it has deteriorated so badly. What do you think are the causes since other commuter rails work just fine in other cities?
Metro is old and is only now being upgraded.
BART has done a better job of maintenance and upgrades
me too, Jamie, miss using it more. I don’t know what the problem is, just keeps getting worse, even the upgrades are horribly mismanaged. But if you have to be somewhere at a certain time, there’s no predicting how long it will take. I’ve waited for trains for up to half on hour. And speaking of escalators nearly every time i’ve used it in the last few years one was broken down somewhere, and those are some long walks up those things. I think they deliberately shut them down to save money.
back to retail shopping, must admit I buy so much on Amazon our local hardware store is about the only retail i go to anymore (other than Safeway). Do wish Amazon could invent biodegradable boxes or something that disintegrates after the warranty expires, they do pile up. My favorite thing about buying on Amazon is the customer comments, i find better products and avoid the duds based on their advice. And they make returns so easy.
Bezos’ $80 million mansion he just bought is 1/2 mile away – we’ve given him enough money toward that he should at least have us over for dinner.
Adam West passes away at 88.
Can’t look at the above without thinking of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
If Metro has problems isn’t that the fault of Congress
yep KGC, like everything else that’s screwed up with DC local govt this is what you get when Congress runs a city (and the residents have no voting power)
Both my son and I are Amazon Prime and use it constantly. I just had my first home delivery from Safeway which was very convenient.
There are times when I miss the human interaction. The only solution for the huge malls that I can think of is making them centers for multi media entertainment and events in much the same way that some theaters on a smaller scale do dinner and a show.
We are going out for a wine tasting today at the Tacoma Armory sponsored by the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts where there will be entertainment, food, auction, and retailers. With all of that parking availability, you would think the malls could do something similar to increase foot traffic.
Looking like Theresa May is finished. Her top aides quit and her party plotting against her.
Jamie, interesting you mention malls as entertainment venue — i once put that very question to a developer I know and was surprised to hear him say he doesn’t even put movie theaters in his malls: “They only draw rowdy teenagers who don’t buy anything.”
Speaking of shopping:
Russians paid $98.4 million For Units At Trump Branded South Florida Condos
I’m back home.
Jamie… geeez… just give me Hollywood Handsome. Then I won’t mind when he loses 🙂
I’m with patd… I miss bookstores. Luckily there’s a thriving independent place one town over. And the one in Mashpee on the Cape is still going strong. It rained last Monday… Rick and I had a lovely couple of hours browsing in it. I bought a lot of summer reading there.
Craig
And yet the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Chain that serves alcohol is growing steadily. DC is supposed to get theirs in 2019). The idea is to cater to the people with cash who want the experience of events with their shopping.
Renee, have you covered. I’ll just put Pogo on the backside to keep you company.
Americans love to eat but many can’t cook so you just put a restaurant next to a retail establishment. That model is being implemented all over the country and i see new strip malls everywhere i go.
Pokemon Go might have (temporarily) saved small-town retail, i still see the positive financial effects on previously shunned town-centers, even though the fad has faded quite a bit.
convert closed malls to assisted living facilities which are more and more in demand. also good for local government needs such as schools, library extinctions, clinics…. renovation sometimes more economical than having to face expenses of building from scratch and utilities, zoning, transportation problems already solved.
looks like another cover-up to me… sure, sarah, 3 yr old hah! more like the big over weight pouty oaf who wanders the halls was grabbing things he could but shouldn’t again
White House principal deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Twitter account posted a rambling series of emojis, letters and numbers on Saturday morning.
Sanders, who regularly stands in for White House press secretary Sean Spicer, didn’t immediately delete the tweet, which features traffic lights, world maps, castles, airplanes, trains and ships.
It turns out the tweet, with its various forms of cartoon transportation, wasn’t a nod to President Trump’s “Infrastructure Week.” Rather, it was the work a 3-year-old.
“This is what happens when your 3 year old steals your phone,” she later tweeted. “Thanks Huck! #neverleaveyourphoneunlocked.”
Rats. I’ll have what Renee’s having. LP would approve.
Vain little puke went to the Cavs game last night. Two guys stopped him in the fan zone after and said, “Dude, you made the jumbotron.” I’m sure he was elated.
The thing about buying stuff online is that you have to become an expert in returning crap. I think I have about a 4th degree black belt in it now. That’s what Miss P does. I joke her unmercifully about paying seven bucks to look at stuff. Now I have to admit that when I comes to musical instruments, I’d say 3/4 of the guitarst I’ve purchased and half the amps were purchased online. Ya gotta know the retailer. I only deal with those who have a liberal return policy.
Attention shoppers. This year, Black Friday will be held three days before Labor Day.
If the folks who worked at those store can’t be placed in new positions, they can’t contribute to our society of consumerism. Disposable goods, disposable people, disposable planet.
The superstores are now scrambling to keep up with Amazon. All large entities, retail and online, bleed their vendors with rebates and compliance penalties. Not only have compliance requirements tightened since they started to appear about a decade ago, but the fines have more than quadrupled in many cases.
This is not an offset of labor lost, this is their cash cow. Many of these large companies are not financially anemic because of vampirism.
Specialty stores can not compete with online competitors because they have rent to pay. I’ve heard stories of folks going to a retail store to check out a product, asking them to price-match an online company, and walking off in a huff when they don’t understand they are also paying for someone’s time/service.
Long ago, there was a store called Service Merchandise. They sold EVERYTHING…but you couldn’t necessarily get it that day. They had all items in display and a limited supply in the back, but more than likely you would place your order, pay for your stuff, then wait for them to call you to pick it up.
That’s a set-up that might work for Amazon retail, except they would deliver your stuff. There are some things you just need to see, feel, try on.
The public transportation/light rail here is horrible. Not only is it unreliable, but the other riders can be dangerous. I never felt scared on a NYC subway, but I refuse to use any mode of DART, again. (Craig, why does the D.C. subway so much farther underground? I can’t imagine having to walk up a broken escalator there?)
Ride-share services are OK in a pinch, unless you get into a car with a driver who chain smokes between fares. You can’t request non-smoking & you can’t complain/leave a negative comment or they will disable your account. They need to work on that. Maybe an up-charge for non-smoking?
We are becoming a nation of drivers, delivering people and things…yet Millenials don’t want to drive.
Some online retailers have a “free” return policy, like Zappos. Sure, returns are figured into the price of goods, but it takes away the mental hurdle of not buying in case you don’t like it.
patD – What should folks have been paying attention to instead of the Huckstress’s twitter feed?
Malls were built when we still had a strong middle class & they had disposable income; they had stores & food courts babysit their teens & tweens. Does anybody want their kid wandering around in a public place anymore?
BiD – Service Merchandise is the catalog showcase store I had in mind when I wrote about those most likely returning.
Right now I am in day 6 of an Amazon Prime two day delivery. Each day it shows the order on the truck to be delivered that day, followed by a note there was a delivery issue and it will be delivered the next day. I called this morning and the nice India based lady read what I was reading. I asked if the truck had turned over and my order burned up with a response of I could cancel and reorder. With that I asked how long that order would take to be delivered if the first order is at one week. Sigh The last time there was a delivery delay they sent someone from the warehouse directly to me. No more.
BB – that was our last experience with Amazon Prime. 2 day shipping – 5 days “delayed in Houston”. I kind of think they were waiting for an empty truck to save a buck on shipping costs.
BB- Yes, Amazon is becoming another Tower of Babel when there’s a glitch with an order. Collapsing under the weight of its success, as new distribution facilities are opened across the country. There’s one close to my office; I’ve heard it’s difficult, repetitive work. I don’t know if they hire full-time employees or not. So many companies hire temp or part-time to avoid paying for benefits.
And, that brings us back to the need for affordable & portable health insurance…or better yet, actual healthcare for all.
RadioShack built a multi-million dollar campus in Ft. Worth. They must’ve gotten cash-strapped or stupid because they sold the real estate and then got behind on the rent. I’m not sure who needs tint, electronic do-dads, but the market changed for the bigger stuff.
I worked in admin for a company that just sold PCs. They sold off that division when they saw the signs of a changing market.
We had the Sears catalog when I was a kid. It was fun to place a pretend order. Of course, I enjoyed doing that with the seed catalogs, too.
Have Uber and Amazon ever paired up to make local deliveries?
My last Amazon order shocked me. I ordered a book in the morning and it was delivered in the afternoon. For the life of me I can’t figure out how they had that book on hand. 🙂
I did pretend order chicks from the Wards and Sears catalogs. I did not really order them because I got them as we, Grandpa and me, traveled from farm to farm. We acquired chicks, and occasionally geese, from all the farmers (I now know the farmers were relatives). I raised them for eggs and dinner. Yes I did name them which does not matter for poultry, rabbits and cows. Okay, most cows did fall in the “your cow went to stay on another farm for a while”.
Belmont moments away. On NBC
I just ordered a dozen smoke alarms on Thursday afternoon — they were here a little over an hour ago today by USPS.
my Lookin at Lee looking good for Belmont
They’ve not started yet
Flatus – I am sorry. You get free fire/smoke detectors, with 10 year batteries, from your local fire department or American Red Cross. We even install them. If they do not have them contact me and I will make sure you get them. (hint: you can return those is possible)(
loading in the posts now, Irish War Cry getting the pundit buzz
Irish War Cry choked. Tapwrit wins.
Me, Flatus, and XR win with Tapwrit
Tapwrit
Irish War Cry
Patch
jesus alou – coulda been better for the Irish.
congrats Jamie, flatus and xr
Congrats Jamie, Flatus, and rep!
Pogo… Our horse did exactly what was expected of him… He came in last 🙂
BB, thanks very much. The supplier acted in good faith and the price for the dozen was about $100 delivered. This is just a normal time-change; if they don’t work after I get thru, I’ll call the FD.
Jamie and XR, a pleasure riding with you!
Was excited to watch new season of House of Cards but turns out it’s boring compared to real life SAD!
Renee. There’s a reason I don’t bet on the ponies.
(CNN)Democrat Jon Ossoff has a 7 percentage point edge over Republican Karen Handel among likely voters in a closely watched special election for a Georgia House seat, a new poll released Friday shows.
Ossoff leads Handel 51% to 44% among likely voters in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll conducted June 5-8 by Abt Associates.