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OwlFancier posted:I don't even know if you can do returns without receipts to enter into the system in most stores. This definitely simplified taking weird returns at Wal-Mart with no receipt. The inventory system had price data on just about any product you could imagine.
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Mar 26, 2017 23:42
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So Payless ShoeSource filed for Chapter 11 today. Who's next on the retail bankruptcy pool?
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Apr 5, 2017 01:50
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Horseshoe theory posted:So Payless ShoeSource filed for Chapter 11 today. Who's next on the retail bankruptcy pool? Good, gently caress them. I guess they figured even low prices don't make up for the absolute worst merchandise. How do you even gently caress up socks, you assholes? To say nothing of their loving lovely shoes, of course...
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Apr 5, 2017 05:16
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Every mall has a no name store that is essentially a shoe-give-away warehouse. Payless was just filler for dystopian strip malls.
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Apr 5, 2017 05:21
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Every Payless I've ever seen is in the worst possible location of whatever property they're on, like in a corner right next to the main entrance of a mall anchor. I missed this from last month, Urban Outfitters CEO cited some interesting things during a conference call: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/urban-outfitters-tumbles-as-ceo-warns-retail-bubble-has-burst quote:“The U.S. market is oversaturated with retail space and far too much of that space is occupied by stores selling apparel,” he said. “Retail square feet per capita in the United States is more than six times that of Europe or Japan. And this doesn’t count digital commerce.” They've also frozen expansion because they'd rather sign leases after rent prices crash. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Apr 6, 2017 |
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Apr 6, 2017 01:54
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So landlord greed is more to blame than actual sales collapse? Color me shocked.
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Apr 6, 2017 11:25
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:So landlord greed is more to blame than actual sales collapse? Color me shocked. Phil Wahba had another interesting take on it: http://fortune.com/2017/03/08/urban-outfitters-bubble/ Highlights: Retail sales are up 4%, but down at department stores, the stores doing well are places like Ulta Beauty that offer a more "experiential" shopping experience, luxury stores aren't doing well either because they've been transitioning away from brand exclusivity and that's led to the same problem, and he thinks that department stores are going to have to shrink their store count by about half. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Apr 6, 2017 |
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Apr 6, 2017 16:17
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:So landlord greed is more to blame than actual sales collapse? Color me shocked. For what it's worth, I know a lady in my city of 40,000 people in rural Kansas that use to own a sunglass kiosk in the local (now slowly shuttering/decaying) mall about 5-10 years ago. At that time the people who owned the mall was a company out of Chicago that used the rent they collected from the mall to fund their skydiving and charter plane business in Chicago and they gave precisely 0 fucks about typical landlord stuff in the mall like patching leaky roofs and making sure the plumbing wasn't constantly backing up into customer bathrooms. The lady told me that for her little sunglass kiosk (not even a storefront mind, just a little 10 square foot stand in the middle of the main thoroughfare) the mall wanted to charge her like $2000 a month plus 20% of all her sales done. She eventually took over a section of her brother's bicycle shop on main street where she pays like 1/3rd the rent and 0% of the sales done. The mall really didn't start getting better until the Chicago guys wound up selling the mall to a management company that actually gave a poo poo about 2-3 years ago, but now that the reputation and physical damage has been done all but one of the anchor stores have fled and a full half of the inside of the mall is empty storefronts.
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Apr 6, 2017 16:49
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One thing the article mentioned that I found really salient is that most of these companies had unrealistically gone deep into debt to fund all this expansion, which put a super heightened amount of stress on the business when sales were only ok, instead of meeting unrealistic goals that were never going to happen. For many of these companies, their current fleets of stores could have been safely profitable if built out slower with lower debt loads. But that didn't happen.
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Apr 6, 2017 16:59
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So from I've read, the full "Deathwatch" list (updated for Payless filing a few days ago) appears to be:
Not too shabby.
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Apr 7, 2017 01:46
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J. Crew seems like one that doesn't go with the others in that list. Although maybe I just see their stores more often than the others.
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Apr 7, 2017 02:27
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Tops I'm not sure about and would be interested in details. They bailed out of the northeast Ohio market due to competition, which is hardly surprising since grocery is notoriously low-margin and swamped with stiff regional competition. The remainder of its business is mostly in upstate New York, especially Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. All three have been in long-term population decline due to Rust Belt malaise, but the local grocery competition is very limited. AFAIK they've only shuttered one NY location and that one was in a terrible location that seems to have been designed to have as little visibility from the road as possible.
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Apr 7, 2017 04:23
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fishmech posted:One thing the article mentioned that I found really salient is that most of these companies had unrealistically gone deep into debt to fund all this expansion, which put a super heightened amount of stress on the business when sales were only ok, instead of meeting unrealistic goals that were never going to happen. You can bet that any CEO who pursued the more conservative strategy would have been mocked on CNBC or fired by their board of directors.
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Apr 7, 2017 05:41
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What the hell is true religion?
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Apr 7, 2017 07:10
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I think its a bęte noire.
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Apr 7, 2017 07:30
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Solkanar512 posted:You can bet that any CEO who pursued the more conservative strategy would have been mocked on CNBC or fired by their board of directors. A lot of these chains were private equity-back leveraged buyouts (LBO) that shat the bed because of the rapid oversaturation coupled with the backlash and the heavy debt. Jack2142 posted:What the hell is true religion? lovely apparel brand that was LBOd.
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Apr 7, 2017 09:42
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Rue21 will file for bankruptcy within the next two or so months. Ralph Lauren has closed its flagship store on Fifth Avenue. 8,640 store closings are projected for 2017. Higher than the 6,200 closing in 2008 as the recession hit. 30,000 retail jobs lost in March. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-07/stores-are-closing-at-a-record-pace-as-amazon-chews-up-retailers
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Apr 7, 2017 21:13
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Jack2142 posted:What the hell is true religion? They're a fashion brand that's heavily focused on designer jeans and other denim clothes.
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Apr 7, 2017 21:15
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Ralph lauren polos are almost $100 and you can get them at tj maxx for $30. I don't know how they'd fix that mess.
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Apr 7, 2017 21:20
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This thread has gone from 'are big retail stores good or bad' to 'which stores will survive the ongoing apocalypse occurring in US retail'.
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Apr 7, 2017 23:10
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Pharohman777 posted:This thread has gone from 'are big retail stores good or bad' to 'which stores will survive the ongoing apocalypse occurring in US retail'. To be fair its more entertaining, also even after Tru Religion on that list I think I have only been in a Claires maybe 7 years ago in Highschool and Sears? Never even heard of most of the others.
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Apr 7, 2017 23:27
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Pharohman777 posted:This thread has gone from 'are big retail stores good or bad' to 'which stores will survive the ongoing apocalypse occurring in US retail'. The one you feed.
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Apr 7, 2017 23:27
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fishmech posted:One thing the article mentioned that I found really salient is that most of these companies had unrealistically gone deep into debt to fund all this expansion, which put a super heightened amount of stress on the business when sales were only ok, instead of meeting unrealistic goals that were never going to happen. this is basically whats going to happen to UFC in ~5 years
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Apr 7, 2017 23:53
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I wonder how much the apparel retail market will be killed by outlet malls, which I expect to survive, perhaps even thrive, through the mallpocalypse. Apple and now Tesla are teaching people that resellers are just another hand in cookie jar making profits at the expense of the customer. People are wondering why independent car dealerships exist since they're just another party with a profit motive. Outlet malls are basically a bunch of company stores and if I want to buy a pair of Reeboks and I'm not some sneakerhead looking for designer poo poo sold by boutiques with VIP accounts, I'll probably go to the Reebok store in my nearby outlet mall than DSW Shoe Warehouse or Champs Sports.
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Apr 8, 2017 01:17
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I'm personally looking forward to Amazon vs. Weyland-Yutani for retail supremacy.
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Apr 8, 2017 02:06
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Craptacular! posted:
Yes noted company that doesn't soak the customer for profit, Apple.  And the only Tesla cars you can actually purchase right now cost a minimum of $70,000, that's hardly mass-market (they've also sold under 300,000 vehicles in total). fishmech fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 03:15
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Craptacular! posted:I wonder how much the apparel retail market will be killed by outlet malls, which I expect to survive, perhaps even thrive, through the mallpocalypse. Yet American Apparel is dead. Retail margins are slim and like everything else retailing is its own thing. Being good at it warrants profit. Most manufacturers want nothing to do with it for good reason. Vertical integration is often more about brand experience than capturing slim retail margins.
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Apr 8, 2017 03:34
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People don't have to actually own a Tesla to hear about the dealership regulatory struggle and dwell on the politics of it. Increasingly though, the valuable brands are the ones that primarily are pitching their own merchandise. Apple Stores are valuable magnets to shopping centers as the concept reaches it's decline. The least valuable retail brands seem to be the ones stocked with stuff from other stores. If I'm already inclined to think I should go to the Apple Store for an Apple phone, and the IKEA store for IKEA things because I can't get those anywhere else, why would I go to Foot Locker or Sears for a pair of Nikes instead of the Nike store? Why would I go to Macy's for a Ralph Lauren polo and not their store? asdf32 posted:Yet American Apparel is dead.
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Apr 8, 2017 05:30
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Craptacular! posted:People don't have to actually own a Tesla to hear about the dealership regulatory struggle and dwell on the politics of it. What "dealership regulatory struggle"? Tesla was just mad they couldn't just have storefronts in upscale malls and sell their cars there in every state (usually because states have common sense requirements for a legal dealership, such as having suitable safes for motor vehicle documents, enough room to actually show cars safely, a landline to ensure the dealership can be contacted, sometimes even specific arrangements for a customer to bring a new/leased car in for repair services). They could still sell their cars online just fine, in fact if you go to most of their locations to actually order the car they direct you to their website anyway. You would go to a Foot Locker because Nike isn't going to bother to open Nike outlet stores in every shitstack town. Duh? Do you think all these brands have infinite cash to keep up that kind of rent, or that the customers all have the time and money to drive out to the lesser number of locations the manufacturers can afford to keep up rent on? Same goes for any other brand that currently sells in multiple stores, retail is an expensive business to get into and has fairly high costs and risks. That's why so many stores are going under in the first place! You seem to be confused by the fact that you live near the center of a fairly large metro area, so of course you're going to have a lot of single-brand stores bothering to set up shop. You won't have that on the outskirts of Des Moines' metro or whatever.
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Apr 8, 2017 05:54
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fishmech posted:You seem to be confused by the fact that you live near the center of a fairly large metro area, so of course you're going to have a lot of single-brand stores bothering to set up shop. You won't have that on the outskirts of Des Moines' metro or whatever. You won't find mall-focused brands like Sears or Dick's Sporting Goods out there, either. I mean it really depends on your definition of backwater. I grew up on fringe suburbs where a town with 43,000 people or so in the 90s opened an outlet mall that's going strong, and I've been to outlet malls in cities way out along a highway between two points like Barstow, CA. Yes, you won't find them in the towns so small they have but one stoplight, but the same applies to big department retail.
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Apr 8, 2017 06:56
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Apr 8, 2017 07:39
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If you remember what I just said about an "experiential" shopping experience, the Apple Store is a prime example of that, and it works because Apple sells gadgets. It's not clear that the same model would make sense with clothing. There's also the fact that Apple is an extremely powerful brand, whereas consumer clothing is much more competitive.
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Apr 8, 2017 10:22
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That's only 10 miles out of central Des Moines, in a prime shopping belt of the loose beltway formed by I-35, I-80, US-65 and an Iowa state route. Craptacular! posted:You won't find mall-focused brands like Sears or Dick's Sporting Goods out there, either. You would find a Sears out there before the company started collapsing. You would still find something like a Foot Locker or other multiple brand shoe stores far before you find outlet stores only. You'd even find various independent or small chain shoe stores first. Also if your town has a whole 43,000 people, how fringe can it really be? There's only about 1350 towns in this country that are 30,000 population or larger. fishmech fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 16:33
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Craptacular! posted:I wonder how much the apparel retail market will be killed by outlet malls, Outlet malls are part of the problem and need to die. They are part of the glut of retail space and chase too few shoppers. They rarely ever provide any sort of bargain for the shopper and I'm convinced at this point most of their sales are driven by people shrugging and telling themselves "Well, I came out all this way anyway, might as well have something to show for it".
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Apr 8, 2017 17:16
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Craptacular! posted:American Apparel is dead because fashion is difficult and because Dov Charney is an rear end. On top of that, they were an ethics brand being squeezed from both sides: people like me never bought their clothes because I can only afford clothes being made by people in sweatshops living even worse than I do, so I'll go to Old Navy or H&M. The people with money, for whatever reason, chose Zara. Zara is well cheaper than American Apparel ever was, and frankly their clothes are about the same quality in terms of workmanship, but they look and feel better to wear. I loved American Apparel t-shirts for a basic t-shirt, but a lot of their other poo poo was super fuckin' weird looking, whereas Zara I can always find something I like that I'm pretty sure will look fashionable on me without a whole bunch of thought on my part. Frankly, it's basically the only place I buy clothes any more because they have a good selection of stuff for cheap enough -- I first went in when I needed a 20€ pair of jeans when I was travelling in Spain and ruined my other pair, and lo and behold, it's a pretty drat good store (advertising in the Iberia inflight magazine paid off for them!). The fact that they make their stuff in places slightly less awful than Bangladesh is good too, of course.
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Apr 9, 2017 00:27
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Outlet malls are a trick on the consumer. They are simply a direct extension of existing retail spaces with (at best) a marginal discount. Stores like TJ MAXX provide an actual discount, but often on factory defects or ugly, lovely product you shouldn't buy anyway. They will fold into the preexisting mainline stores under a discount rack as inventories continue to shrink. Places like Nordstrom Rack were busted years back for manufacturing submarket products directly for their discount stores then slapping a fake 'original retail value' sticker on the tag as if it were ever going to be seen in a main store. Macy's is being pretty shortsighted by branching their customers further apart with a discount branch of stores called Macy's Backstage. All you do is fragment your customer base and prevent people from ever visiting the main store. I get the idea but the market needs to condense, not spread out. They're shutting some 160 stores nationwide when they should at least double that. Los Angeles and SF had Macy's every six miles or so. And they're all small and lovely. (I work for Macy's)
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Apr 9, 2017 02:52
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Most clothing in outlet stores was manufactured for the outlet store, and was never listed at the price the tags show it being marked down from. It's usually terrible quality - I bought some J. Crew Outlet cardigans before I knew this and they came apart at the seams after the first wash. Multi-brand discount stores like TJ Maxx and Nordstom Rack do the same thing. It's all a scam. Your J. Crew Outlet Clothes Aren't Discounted, They're Just Cheap
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Apr 9, 2017 03:34
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Occasionally they will have items that are genuinely good quality marked down because primary retailers couldn't move them and dumped them in bulk but broadly? It's sub-market garbage based on illusionary value
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Apr 9, 2017 06:13
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Ammanas posted:Occasionally they will have items that are genuinely good quality marked down because primary retailers couldn't move them and dumped them in bulk but broadly? It's sub-market garbage based on illusionary value Modern quality control processes should make the inventory of genuinely rejected mainline items so small that it would be impossible to stock all their outlet stores, it's a complete fiction
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Apr 9, 2017 15:12
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So do we have a list of which retail outlets are doing well, which ones are having problems, and which are almost/totally gone. When I started this thread, I guess I still had a mindset from 2005 or 2006 (not too long ago) when Big Box stores were still bulldozing across America, and we thought we were being so precious in Portland because we weren't shopping at them. But it looks like things have quite changed! But I think some retailers are still doing well. These types of stores seem to be doing well: Wal-Mart and Target, because they have a wide range of merchandise, and a lot of it is low-cost and perishable. Costco, because cheap prices and probably those muffins Walgreens because they are consolidating the pharmacy business, because they have general merchandise, and because much of what they sell is things people need right away (You don't wait for Amazon to deliver your diarrhea medicine) Home Depot, Lowe's Probably because much of the merchandise is too bulky to be delivered, also its something you want to see before you buy (Perhaps demographics as well) Dollar Tree, etc: Steep discounts make up for lack of selection. Also, a one stop-shopping experience. Am I wrong on those? Are there any other retail outlets that are still doing well?
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Apr 9, 2017 17:19
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