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Flayer posted:I would not take the Japanese figures at face value since Japanese companies are notorious for fostering a culture where workers are expected to work a ridiculous amount of unpaid overtime to get ahead. Well, if you worked more than 2,080 hours a week, you worked more than 40 hours, every week, on average, which means on average you had effectively no vacation. And that would be the average. In that context, Korea getting 2,512 hours in 2000 is loving absurd.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 15:47 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 02:08 |
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blowfish posted:How do they deal with expat workers (probably not too many in Japan, but probably not zero either) who are used to actually doing 9-5 if it says 9-5 on the contract, or leaving after they finish whatever they were paid to do that day? Large multinational Japan-based companies (think the automakers) typically won't penalize you for this. They just also won't ever bump you up the ladder either. It's really really difficult to get fired from a Japanese conglomerate company unless you do something downright illegal. They're getting better, though, largely because years of this stuff has torpedoed their birth rate and aged the hell out of their population to the point where the traditional grind jobs can't find the replacement workers in a smaller pool of applicants who are now in far higher demand. With a shrinking workforce, they're finally under pressure to fix some of their business environment issues, especially since bigger companies are getting more willing to use expats due to the workforce issues they have at home. The rule of thumb is that Japanese work culture lags behind the US by like 10-15 years, so they're starting to shift things a bit to where we were when millennials entered the workforce. Now if we're talking the customs, like say, business card decorum. That's where you'd get proper hosed. My buddies at Toyota and Honda have some of the most insane stories of cultural lessons they get to learn before going over on business. Everyone in Japan has Bateman-level business card habits.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 16:06 |
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fishmech posted:Businesses got to really abuse their workers during the dictatorship years, and a lot of labor law reform to cut down on that is still missing. Bosses often "expect" workers to "voluntarily" come in before the boss and leave after the boss every day, and that sort of thing proceeds all the way down from top executives to middle managers to the average worker. (So like let's say the CEO comes in at 10 am and leaves at 4 pm everyday. His immediate underlings might be expected to try to come in at 9:30 am and leave at 4:30 pm to ensure that they never come in after or leave before the CEO. Their underlings are doing 9-5, theirs are doing 8:30 - 5:30 etc. In some big companies, the average grunt worker in the office might be working til like 8 PM many days because of this - while their salary is still based on doing a normal 9-5.) It's even worse. After your shift "ends" which is often already way later than it was supposed to be, you are expected to then go out with your team for dinner, drinks, or general bonding (karaoke with more drinking). This means Korean men working in a corporate environment are often not home until very late, which naturally leads to a lot of family issues at home. This is a good article on Korean work culture: http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/english/oped/opinions/3698-insider-perspective-seven-reasons-why-korea-has-worst-productivity-oecd
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 16:26 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:It's even worse. After your shift "ends" which is often already way later than it was supposed to be, you are expected to then go out with your team for dinner, drinks, or general bonding (karaoke with more drinking). This means Korean men working in a corporate environment are often not home until very late, which naturally leads to a lot of family issues at home. If you're out too late in Tokyo you just crash in a hotel near work. The trains stop running surprisingly early. Or just say gently caress it and rent a tiny apartment near work.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 18:07 |
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Getting back to Lifestyle centers, I'm a bit surprised that no one has talked about the condos that often accompany them. We have The Domain here in Austin, which is basically an outdoor mall with some condos sprinkled next to/on top of a few places. A acquaintance actually lived above the Tiffany & Co for a couple of years. Now, why anyone would want to live in a mall is beyond me (other than making a obvious Kendrick Lamar reference).
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 19:44 |
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LanceHunter posted:Getting back to Lifestyle centers, I'm a bit surprised that no one has talked about the condos that often accompany them. We have The Domain here in Austin, which is basically an outdoor mall with some condos sprinkled next to/on top of a few places. A acquaintance actually lived above the Tiffany & Co for a couple of years. Now, why anyone would want to live in a mall is beyond me (other than making a obvious Kendrick Lamar reference). Depends what the setup is. in D.C. and New York, mixed-use development is quickly becoming a huge draw for people who would be living in apartment anyway. These aren't the same as lifestyle centers, but they are similar. They usually have some common amenities, retail, food, and a small park area. Living right above a grocery store, liquor store, Chipotle, and CVS Pharmacy could be an extremely nice set-up. The businesses would pay a premium to lease there because of the built-in customer base.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 19:51 |
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LanceHunter posted:Getting back to Lifestyle centers, I'm a bit surprised that no one has talked about the condos that often accompany them. We have The Domain here in Austin, which is basically an outdoor mall with some condos sprinkled next to/on top of a few places. A acquaintance actually lived above the Tiffany & Co for a couple of years. Now, why anyone would want to live in a mall is beyond me (other than making a obvious Kendrick Lamar reference). It's one of those things that does and doesn't make sense at the same time. In Chicago, you see apartments over commercial spaces all over the place. These are cheap apartments though because you're usually on a busy street, it's loud, there's no green space at all, little parking, and it's normally old. These new developments are marketed to more upper-middle class types. I get the idea of living above commercial spaces because mixed use development makes a lot of sense, just not for these kinds of people. It works when you have people who don't have a car, and don't need one because they live so close to where they low income commercial jobs are, not some guy living in the suburbs and then commuting downtown to work in an office building. I don't understand it either.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:19 |
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LanceHunter posted:Getting back to Lifestyle centers, I'm a bit surprised that no one has talked about the condos that often accompany them. We have The Domain here in Austin, which is basically an outdoor mall with some condos sprinkled next to/on top of a few places. A acquaintance actually lived above the Tiffany & Co for a couple of years. Now, why anyone would want to live in a mall is beyond me (other than making a obvious Kendrick Lamar reference).
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:23 |
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Living directly above a shop is usually a bit rough as above store housing in the UK is generally old and small. But, like, living right next to the shop is really handy.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:26 |
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OwlFancier posted:Living directly above a shop is usually a bit rough as above store housing in the UK is generally old and small. Most of the mixed-use development in U.S. cities is new construction and generally targeted at upper-middle class professionals. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jun 15, 2017 |
# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:27 |
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LanceHunter posted:Getting back to Lifestyle centers, I'm a bit surprised that no one has talked about the condos that often accompany them. We have The Domain here in Austin, which is basically an outdoor mall with some condos sprinkled next to/on top of a few places. A acquaintance actually lived above the Tiffany & Co for a couple of years. Now, why anyone would want to live in a mall is beyond me (other than making a obvious Kendrick Lamar reference). I wonder what's going to happen to the apartments/condos when some of the business portions of these mixed-use developments start to go under. They're all relatively shiny and new right now, but for every reasonable one I see with groceries, pharmacies, laundromats, etc etc, I see two with luxury stores and "trend of the moment" shops downstairs instead. I'm curious to see how quickly artificial upscale can turn into blight once the downstairs businesses are empty storefronts.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:28 |
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Sundae posted:I wonder what's going to happen to the apartments/condos when some of the business portions of these mixed-use developments start to go under. They're all relatively shiny and new right now, but for every reasonable one I see with groceries, pharmacies, laundromats, etc etc, I see two with luxury stores and "trend of the moment" shops downstairs instead. I'm curious to see how quickly artificial upscale can turn into blight once the downstairs businesses are empty storefronts. That probably won't be a major issue unless the whole area is pulling a Detroit or, for some reason, you have a large mixed-use building in a suburban or rural area (i.e. never happen.) A retail space with a captive customer base is always going to be a large draw. They could even charge slightly higher prices and most people wouldn't be price-sensitive enough or inconvenienced enough to not go to the store that is a 15-second walk downstairs.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:34 |
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The 24 hour grocery store that used to be across the street from me closed last summer because they couldn't pay their rent anymore because of increases, but the place has just been vacant ever since. No idea what's up with that. I hope the landlord is enjoying the irony though.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:36 |
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wateroverfire posted:In some cases they overlook it because expats are a separate and exotic species whose ways are not like those of civilized folk and in other cases they make them get in line or get fired, I imagine. I'm pretty sure that having an American on staff is a status symbol so you just let the American do his thing and brag about having one at all.
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 22:12 |
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:That probably won't be a major issue unless the whole area is pulling a Detroit or, for some reason, you have a large mixed-use building in a suburban or rural area (i.e. never happen.) these lifestyle centers are exclusively in the burbs in cle. are you excluding these centers themselves as your qualifier for large mixed use buidings?
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# ? Jun 15, 2017 22:14 |
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:these lifestyle centers are exclusively in the burbs in cle. are you excluding these centers themselves as your qualifier for large mixed use buidings? Yes. Mixed-use development means residential and commercial in the same building. Lifestyle centers are 100% commercial.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 00:03 |
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Mixed-use development could also mean office and retail in the same building, that's pretty common in "downtown" areas.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 00:49 |
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I work for a large Optical Chain. Its been crazy how much we've been impacted by online glasses sales. I'm worried about the future of this company because we are getting crushed right now.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 01:32 |
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Cicero posted:Mixed-use development is actually good and cool. Okay yeah being above a Tiffany is useless, but being right above a Trader Joe's or a great [ethnicity] restaurant would be rad. Living above any food outlets is a mixed bag. You better hope to God the owner of the property has an iron clad lock on pest control. I live in a 100 year old building that is connected to the main drag restaurants around the corner. Any slippage in pest control or an unusually warm winter and you're dealing with critters. I mean, you're always around 25 or so feet from a member of mus musculus if you happen to live in an older area that has lots of mixed use, but if spraying and baiting isn't done in the boiler/basement/storage areas and diligence in making sure all penetrations are sealed tight, they get out of hand..and FAST. That said, I love the fact that I live in an older suburb (NYC) that is on the rail line and has a traditional early 20th century town 'core' that was built up before the proliferation of cars. The problem with new developments that they put up in this vein is they don't have any sense of scale and, unlike the people that built those row houses 100 years ago, their all done by one huge McDeveloper. An individual building a 5 unit apartment building with storefront is different than some firm putting in 25 million dollars worth of housing stock. All the new stuff that goes up either out here in the burbs on the rail stops or downtown are all absolutely outsized for their area. This becomes acute in places like Long Island City in Queens which has highrises going up every seeming 15 minutes. Every one of them comes with an absolutely gigantic (we're talking near super-block) tract of commercial space on the ground floor. None of them typically want to divide and even if they did it would just look out of place to have a bunch of corner stores and bars each with 25 foot full glass fronts. So the only tenants that can afford to move in are the banks or some other sterile, yet well monetized entity.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 01:41 |
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SalTheBard posted:I work for a large Optical Chain. Its been crazy how much we've been impacted by online glasses sales. I'm worried about the future of this company because we are getting crushed right now. Lol because luxotica stores literally charge a 1000% markup.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 01:42 |
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Jesus Horse posted:Lol because luxotica stores literally charge a 1000% markup. Seriously. I lust for luxotica death. It's a hideously garbage monopoly and if online sales has done one good thing its to provide actually affordable glasses for the masses instead of $200+ prescription monstrosities.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 02:17 |
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SalTheBard posted:I work for a large Optical Chain. Its been crazy how much we've been impacted by online glasses sales. I'm worried about the future of this company because we are getting crushed right now. I hope it's Visionworks. Wait all optical chains are awful. And don't tell me it's just the online glasses retailers, you can get wonderful glasses and an exam at Walmart or, if you've got more money, Costco.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 02:49 |
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Xaris posted:Seriously. I lust for luxotica death. It's a hideously garbage monopoly and if online sales has done one good thing its to provide actually affordable glasses for the masses instead of $200+ prescription monstrosities. I also lust for Luxotticas death, but I like working for Lens Crafters and don't want to lose my part time job I would honestly recommend anyone who has simple single vision RX AND doesn't have insurance to get their glasses online. If you have insurance please get your glasses retail because you pay close to the same and you get an Opticians help with measurements. If you wear non line bifocals (Progressives) you should get those from a physical store because there are a lot to those lenses and they are hard to just guess at where your measurements should go. Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I hope it's Visionworks. I work for Lens Crafters. Honestly my store is a high volume store that does around $3 million a year. For such a high volume store we haven't had a serious renovation in years. Our carpet looks like garbage, we have the same frame models on the wall that we've had since I started working there in 2012. Our employees are poorly trained and only thanks to the tech we have in the store are they able to get a decent measurement. There are many issues that have been correctly pointed out why Lens Crafters (and to the same extent Visionworks) suck. The mark up is heinous (but not out of line when compared to other Optical Companies. Lens Crafters has stayed in business for as long as it has with it's "glasses in an hour." In the end there are always going to be people who are willing to pay a little more to get them faster. Coupled with the fact that Luxoticca owns the 2nd largest Vision Insurance provider in America you have a company that won't die. They are shriveling though and the thing thats going to hurt the most is they are shutting down roughly 70% of the Optical Labs in America. Pretty soon "glasses in an hour" won't be a thing for 70% of the stores in America, if they lose their iconic trademark what the gently caress is left? I also think there is something to be said about people being burned out on LC brand because there are two boutique chains in this area (Brookside Optical and Romanalli Optix) which are WAY more expensive than we are but seem to sustain a health clientele. Internet glasses used to be a niche market that only a small handful of people heard about. Thanks to word of mouth and aggressive advertising the amount of people that I know with internet purchased glasses has grown substantially. It makes me sad because I love being an Optician and I'm very proud of the brand I work for. I hate Luxottica but I like Lens Crafters. Anyways sorry to bore you all with the death of Optical Retail. Also if you do order your glasses online, if you got into a retail store to have them adjuster don't tell us you bought them online because I can't speak for everyone but I get really irritated about adjusting glasses from the internet. SalTheBard fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jun 16, 2017 |
# ? Jun 16, 2017 04:55 |
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I was a Lens Crafters consumer between 2002 and 2014 and I can tell you they suck. I don't hate you, I don't necessarily want you to lose your specific job, but there's no reason my poor eyesight should cause me to be gouged. If instead of not seeing well, I was constantly spewing feces out of my eyes, I wouldn't want some assholes giving me disingenuous arguments about how amazing their eye poo poo funnels were and how nobody would notice my constantly spewing eyes if only I bought their brand.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 05:11 |
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I had three pairs of glasses in my life, one was decent enough but got scratched lenses eventually, one had frames that seemed ok in the store but within a week I was sick of them because they never fit right, they were either too loose or too tight if I tried fixing them, and the third pair again seemed ok in the store but within a month the lens prescription became obviously not right. Switched to contacts for a decade, then got lasik because I was tired of contacts. This is so much better I got at least one of those pairs from lenscrafters.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 05:14 |
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SalTheBard posted:Also if you do order your glasses online, if you got into a retail store to have them adjuster don't tell us you bought them online because I can't speak for everyone but I get really irritated about adjusting glasses from the internet. Sure I'd agree with that. I just adjust them myself but seems like they could have some market there if they also sold ~$25 adjustments tho
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 05:30 |
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I was a Lens Crafters consumer between 2002 and 2014 and I can tell you they suck. I don't hate you, I don't necessarily want you to lose your specific job, but there's no reason my poor eyesight should cause me to be gouged. If instead of not seeing well, I was constantly spewing feces out of my eyes, I wouldn't want some assholes giving me disingenuous arguments about how amazing their eye poo poo funnels were and how nobody would notice my constantly spewing eyes if only I bought their brand. There's one company that controls like 75% or so of glasses business in the entire world. Yes that includes sunglasses. It looks like different companies but they own like all of them.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 05:31 |
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I was just happy to be able to order 3 pairs of eye glasses and 2 pairs of prescription sunglasses for way less than half of what lenscrafters charges for a single pair edit: sorry, just checked 4000% mark up Jesus Horse fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jun 16, 2017 |
# ? Jun 16, 2017 05:35 |
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I'm not defending LC but literally every retail optical place has that kind of a mark up. Like I said I would tell anyone with a basic perception to get their glasses online.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 06:58 |
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LanceHunter posted:Getting back to Lifestyle centers, I'm a bit surprised that no one has talked about the condos that often accompany them. We have The Domain here in Austin, which is basically an outdoor mall with some condos sprinkled next to/on top of a few places. A acquaintance actually lived above the Tiffany & Co for a couple of years. Now, why anyone would want to live in a mall is beyond me (other than making a obvious Kendrick Lamar reference). your particular example might be poor just because the domain is a hell on earth
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 07:10 |
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Not sure what thread this should go in but Amazon buying Whole Foods is kind of hilarious. They really want to get their cashier-free stores going with this acquisition. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-amazon-whole-foods-20170616-story.html
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 14:39 |
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SalTheBard posted:I'm not defending LC but literally every retail optical place has that kind of a mark up. Like I said I would tell anyone with a basic perception to get their glasses online. Do people try on frames/lenses in the store and then go order them online? I would never trust to order something like that online without being able to try them on first. I did order some safety glasses for work online, they're generally fine, but a little tight. I put up with it because I only need them every once in a while, but something I had to wear for 16 hours a day, no way.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 14:43 |
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Bird in a Blender posted:Do people try on frames/lenses in the store and then go order them online? I would never trust to order something like that online without being able to try them on first. The business model for online optical retailers like Warby-Parker is that you pick some frames you like, they send samples for you to try on, then after trying them on you pick the one you actually want and order it. They also now have a few physical showrooms in certain cities. R. Guyovich posted:your particular example might be poor just because the domain is a hell on earth That is a very fair point.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 14:57 |
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Raylen posted:Not sure what thread this should go in but Amazon buying Whole Foods is kind of hilarious. They really want to get their cashier-free stores going with this acquisition. Or replace Amazon Fresh with a more trusted brand and set of products.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 15:25 |
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Raylen posted:Not sure what thread this should go in but Amazon buying Whole Foods is kind of hilarious. They really want to get their cashier-free stores going with this acquisition. Interestingly, Target, Costco, Walmart and other grocery stores are getting crushed in the stock market today.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 15:36 |
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Amazon just bought whole foods. The German chains (aldi being the one that matters) plan on expanding significantly. Welp grocery that isn't publix.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 16:49 |
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BrandorKP posted:Amazon just bought whole foods. The German chains (aldi being the one that matters) plan on expanding significantly. Welp grocery that isn't publix. HEB here in Texas is still killing it. They're very good.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 16:59 |
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Wegmans is still the god-king of all grocery.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 17:10 |
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axeil posted:Wegmans is still the god-king of all grocery. Yeah
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 17:12 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 02:08 |
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Wegmans is such a good grocery store I literally drive 40 minutes once a month to go to the one out in Fairfax instead of just walking to the grocery store down the street from my house. It's that much better.
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# ? Jun 16, 2017 17:14 |