Retail is in trouble.

[OneTrueMisfitSpectator 2690]

Good I hope it bombs.

Don't care

[narrow road travelerParticipant 1680]

FrankOne wrote:

OldBill: Yes, it is the ‘creative destruction’ of a free market or changing preferences. Businesses that don’t serve modern consumers like K-Mart and Sears shrink, while those that do serve consumer needs, e.g. price, selection, convenience, such as Amazon, expand. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/retail-sales is the plot of interest and it shows little change in TOTAL retail spending. So retail is NOT in trouble. The last time it WAS in trouble was the financial crisis, also clear from plot.

Faust: Government isn’t the entity causing materialism and keeping up with the Jones’s. Admittedly, government contributes at the fringes, but it isn’t sticking a gun to our heads saying ‘go buy the iPhone 8, and BRANDing us with a hot iron so we buy only products from Nike, Apple, P&G, etc. That brainwashing is accomplished through advertising and public education.

Narrow: But is efficiency everything? For example, I never eat at most of the big chain restaurants; I favor the exotic cuisine of Mom & Pop restaurants, especially ethnic ones, on those occasions when I eat out.

Efficiency gains market share. I’ll grant that not everone is a cookie cutter person. The main of the bell curve drives major markets. Outlier shoppers are in the market, but are rarely drivers of it.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. --Sun Tsu

[Anonymous 1]

FrankOne wrote:

Government isn’t the entity causing materialism and keeping up with the Jones’s. Admittedly, government contributes at the fringes, but it isn’t sticking a gun to our heads saying ‘go buy the iPhone 8, and BRANDing us with a hot iron so we buy only products from Nike, Apple, P&G, etc. That brainwashing is accomplished through advertising and public education.

Edward Bernays was the propagandist, who helped create the Century of the Self and the culture of consumption. Americans became predominantly consumers, who bought goods based on their wants and not their needs. It was all done through mass advertising techniques. Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and he utilized Psychology to exploit the public. There is a great documentary done on this called “The Century of the Self.”

[MorpheusParticipant 2177]

Online stores are only good for electronics, art deco, home appliances and other small things. For everything else, retail stores are better. No one is going to buy a car online. Buying clothes online is way more complicated than it needs to be. Buying furniture online is gamble with a decent amount of money. Retail stores are going to stay but most businesses would be like owning a mcdonalds otlet. You won’t be the sole owner of the restaurant.

[AutoliteParticipant]

Morpheus wrote:

Online stores are only good for electronics, art deco, home appliances and other small things. For everything else, retail stores are better.

I don’t know what to think. Maybe in the States things run a a little smoother but here in Canada the delivery time wait for Amazon.ca is absolutely f~~~ing murderous. And the shipping charges can be criminal.

You might need a mechanical part that could take two and a half months to arrive. Not necessarily Amazon’s fault of course but it doesn’t do much to encourage folks to buy online…

[GeraldParticipant 3620]

I work part time in retail. Today we were unloading and hanging shirts. I compared the one I was hanging to the 4.44 shirt I was wearing and found zero difference.

The price on the one I was hanging?

$89.50

No longer can we walk away, we must run. Remove the motive power.

[MorpheusParticipant 2177]

Autolite wrote:

I don’t know what to think. Maybe in the States things run a a little smoother but here in Canada the delivery time wait for Amazon.ca is absolutely f~~~ing murderous. And the shipping charges can be criminal.

You might need a mechanical part that could take two and a half months to arrive. Not necessarily Amazon’s fault of course but it doesn’t do much to encourage folks to buy online…

Maybe it has to do with vast distances and a really low population density.

[Can’t Stump TrumpParticipant]

Gerald wrote:

The price on the one I was hanging?

$89.50

I know what you’re saying. At the Belk and Rue 21 stores in the closest shopping center, suit jackets are $500, but there’s a guy with a tiny store about 20 minutes away who will buy and tailor a suit jacket for you for about $100. It’s not brand name, but if anything it’s BETTER quality than the more expensive ones at the stores.

Even funnier, I got a navy blazer at Salvation Army for $5. It was practically brand new. I’ve got nothing but compliments on both of them.

Women are better at multitasking? Fucking up several things at once is not multitasking.

[AutoliteParticipant]

Morpheus wrote:

Maybe it has to do with vast distances and a really low population density.

Indeed. That and Canada Customs. I had once tracked a computer part that I needed and found out that it had been sitting for several weeks on a shelf at Canada Customs for absolutely zero f~~~ing valid reason. It is what it is…

[AutoliteParticipant]

Can’t Stump Trump wrote:

Even funnier, I got a navy blazer at Salvation Army for $5. It was practically brand new. I’ve got nothing but compliments on both of them.

I buy second hand as much as possible. Shirts, jackets and boots mostly. It’s unbelievable what people are still throwing out. I figure that we might see a day when we’ll be slitting each others throats for the kinda stuff that people today are just tossing away…

[Secret Agent MGTOWParticipant 22515]

Retail shopping is a pain in the ass. Yes.

I often check store inventory before going and often the store says they have x in but then the store has zero. I do this right before I go so they are not just selling out because I wait a day or two.

Often they say the lookup systems and inventory systems are not in sync but I say, why offer this if it is totally unreliable.

Women want everything, but want responsibility and accountability for nothing.

[X11Spectator 4520]

I know a shop that catered for tradcons for 30 years and recently started to go broke as people have less money to spend on bulls~~~.

Solution they now cater for gay men who have more disposable income than tradcons. The gays like to spend on useless s~~~ as well.

The market speaks, society is over.

Also if you don’t buy all your s~~~ direct from China you are a cuck.

[MarketWatcherParticipant]

On-line sales are killing them. The “hive” shops 24/7 on their idiot phones. No need to even get the fat ass off the couch. Sad.

[X11Spectator 4520]

Studies show people spend and gamble more online than if they physically doing a manual transaction in a shop.

It appears a psychological filter exists for how much money one spends using manual payment methods.

That filter is lost in online transactions.

The difference is staggering especially amongst gamblers.

I thinks shops will just become display houses where nobody actually buys stuff. Some upmarket places are like that now.

Old people started getting groceries bought online and delivered, now working people are doing it.

[CarnageParticipant 22113]

Why should I care?

To those following me, be careful, I just farted. Men those beans are killers.

[X11Spectator 4520]

Carnage wrote:

Why should I care?

Tough question.

[CoolbreezeParticipant 442]

Carnage wrote:

Why should I care?

Because it will have either a positive or negative effect on the community in which you live. It helps to know what’s happening in order to make informed decisions- or not.

[RASmanParticipant 1994]

For we that live in smaller cities, the mood, at least here, has always been that the store owners were the elite of the small community, who controlled pretty much everything. They owned the only sources for many goods and services and therefor controlled prices and variety. They treated non-elite customers like crap: rape level prices and poor service (you could stand there for hours an not get waited on). Your choice was to tolerate that type of treatment or drive 200 miles to a large city. The small town merchants paid employees nothing and charged out the ass for goods in order to live like kings.

Then came the internet. Find what you want, order and get delivered to your door two days later. No snotty jerks to deal with and fair prices (competition – it can be a killer!). And it’s not possible to block the internet competition like they did when a new store tried to come to town and they and their local city council cronies blocked them opening.

[Anonymous 3]

Gerald wrote:

I work part time in retail. Today we were unloading and hanging shirts. I compared the one I was hanging to the 4.44 shirt I was wearing and found zero difference.

The price on the one I was hanging?

$89.50

I had a friend in the clothing business that actually told me that a long time ago. These clothes are all made in the same place with the same materials and same processes. The only difference is the label.

But at some point, if people don’t have money, and it’s really the middle class for this, they will stop trying to compete on status. So nobody buys those types of brands, and instead starts buying functional stuff.

It’s going to also happen to smartphones, as the technology has matured. It might already be happening.

Retail is advancing and evolving. Amazon unquestionably does a lot of things better than most smaller places did. You have a wider selection and can make returns easier. This is especially important on more sophisticated items and more expensive items, because most people really dislike having something break on them and being stuck with it. That used to happen constantly with small time retailers.

I eventually envision UBI, more robots and AI, and online pretty much everything. Humanity has always been improving, even though shortsighted people never can understand that. From getting rid of slavery to construction vehicles to electricity to indoor plumbing to the printing press to the modern assembly line and its further improvements, technology has always removed jobs and companies as time went on. And people’s standard of living has ensuingly spiked up.

Anyone that really wants to “go back to a previous time” can always go move to a third world country. You won’t like it, but you’ll get to enjoy all the corruption and difficulty previous generations had to all over the world. Being born in America is like winning the lottery, you’re better off than 99% of the history of the world, and even today still better off than 99% of the world. It would be better to understand and be grateful than to whine and be entitled like women do. That doesn’t mean absolutely no criticisms, but it does mean appreciating what we have and trying to make the best of it going forward.

[foghornleghornParticipant 3449]

Jan Sobieski wrote:

‘Retail Apocalypse’ Causing More Than 3,500 Stores to Close: What You’re Not Being Told

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Any thoughts?
I think people don’t have the money to support them.

Fewer married people means fewer men serving as human wallets.

[Author]

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