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This thread is seriously depressing, the retail business and malls in my country are still following an upward trend, but seeing the developments in America is like looking out into the distance and seeing a tsunami wave that you know is going to slam into you, and you can do nothing about it.
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Aug 1, 2017 10:11
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It's mostly over capacity. Too many malls were built and retailers have far too many stores. Online shopping is pushing things along faster, but everything should stabilize once about 1/3rd of all these excess store locations close up. Most of the retailers will survive in their new smaller footprint. Except Sears. Ain't nothing helping Sears.
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Aug 1, 2017 11:29
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Krispy Kareem posted:It's mostly over capacity. Too many malls were built and retailers have far too many stores. This is eventually going to happen in my country. We have a 4 million population and about 3 is concentrated in our capital. However, according to our Labor Ministry, less than 60% of that population earns more than $800 monthly. Developers and investors are building malls like there's no tomorrow. Most of the apartments that are being built are empty, you can see at night that those new residential towers have at most 3 to 4 apartments occupied. Waiting for the market correction here.
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Aug 1, 2017 12:28
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Krispy Kareem posted:It's mostly over capacity. Too many malls were built and retailers have far too many stores. Leadership with expressed goals other than real estate holding and a time machine could save Sears.
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Aug 1, 2017 12:52
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Hmmm are people saying that capitalists see a gap in the market then overproduce to fulfill that need to the point that profits crash? Perhaps you could refer to this as some sort of "crisis", hmmm.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:28
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Mustached Demon posted:Leadership with expressed goals other than real estate holding and a time machine could save Sears. The current dumbass at Sears saved Sears. It would have already died multiple times over had he not kept it on life support because of its real estate. Sears could build a Kenmore Time Machine, go back to 1993, stab Jeff Bezos multiple times with a Craftsman screwdriver, and that bloody screwdriver would still outlive Sears as a company by decades.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:34
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Krispy Kareem posted:The current dumbass at Sears saved Sears. It would have already died multiple times over had he not kept it on life support because of its real estate. Well wasn't Sears poised to be the Amazon of the 90's but balked at insurance and internet services, thus losing out on that explosive growth in the 2000s?
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Aug 1, 2017 15:54
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Likely. Basically any internet service that's willing to have a sane interface and actual infrastructure gets a practical monopoly so goddamn fast if it's first in its niche.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:56
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Jastiger posted:Well wasn't Sears poised to be the Amazon of the 90's but balked at insurance and internet services, thus losing out on that explosive growth in the 2000s? All of the businesses they got out of (Credit cards, ISP's, insurance) still couldn't have kept the retail side afloat. Sears died when they bet everything on people going to malls rather than having poo poo delivered to their door.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:58
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Jastiger posted:Outlet Malls..they used to be a place where you can get deals on outdated or unsold merch. Genuinely overstock outlet goods. There's a really huge outdoor outlet mall like a half mile from my house, and it is just complete trash. It's all designed to be hip and trendy and open-air with beautiful walkways and poo poo....but they must be charging an arm and a leg for storefront rent because the prices are garbage compared to their other mall locations, to say nothing of online. There's a Crocs store, trying to shill Crocs at an outlet for >$55. HOW THE gently caress DOES THAT HAPPEN. Krispy Kareem posted:The current dumbass at Sears saved Sears. It would have already died multiple times over had he not kept it on life support because of its real estate. Hahaha this is so hilariously false it's unreal. Sears was pretty much dead and buried well before Lampert came along, and what saved them was Kmart buying them out in what was obviously a disastrously bad investment from both companies, but by all means if you want to continue thinking that the guy that actively trashed the unexpected goodwill from that sale and aggressively set about dropping services and closing stores was somehow helping a company that was on the rebound when he came in then sure, enjoy that lil' headcanon you have there.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:26
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food court bailiff posted:Hahaha this is so hilariously false it's unreal. Sears was pretty much dead and buried well before Lampert came along, and what saved them was Kmart buying them out in what was obviously a disastrously bad investment from both companies, but by all means if you want to continue thinking that the guy that actively trashed the unexpected goodwill from that sale and aggressively set about dropping services and closing stores was somehow helping a company that was on the rebound when he came in then sure, enjoy that lil' headcanon you have there. I have no idea what you are saying. Sears was dead until Kmart? But that somehow helped? But the guy who saved Sears (Lampert at Kmart) somehow killed it as well? Lampert and Kmart are the same thing. The Kmart merger was terrible because Wall Street mistook a bankruptcy followed by a billion in cost cutting as somehow 'turning around' Kmart when it's revenues kept dropping. That high stock price allowed them to buy Sears, which was struggling - but now it was struggling with Kmart as its anchor and a whole lot more debt. All of the brilliant ideas for turning Kmarts into free-standing Sears' stores didn't happen and you just had two failing brands with no synergy. Did Kmarts ever even sell Sears exclusives? Sears was going to die regardless, but maybe not as quick. Lambert killed it, but also kept it alive. Like he put Sears on a respirator, but he occasionally steps on the air line and only lets up when the convulsions start while whispering, "reeeeeal estate...keeenmore....diiiiie heard" into Sears' ear. Edit: Headline the day Sears finally dies. SEARS DIES HARD Front page, 80 point, above the fold. Krispy Wafer has a new favorite as of 17:52 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 16:44
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When Sears dies Lampert will get paid for killing it thanks to all of the money Sears owes his hedge fund. Just feels incredibly shady to me.
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Aug 1, 2017 17:16
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FlamingLiberal posted:When Sears dies Lampert will get paid for killing it thanks to all of the money Sears owes his hedge fund. Just feels incredibly shady to me. It's shady, but he's not really quite as much of an evil mastermind as he's sometimes made out to be. He had to light a lot of money on fire to get into the position where he is now and a lot of his manipulations are just trying to dig himself out of a really bad investment. Things are going to have to go juuuuuust right for him to actually wind up with anything to show for 15+ years of loving around with dying retail giants.
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Aug 1, 2017 17:43
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Straight White Shark posted:It's shady, but he's not really quite as much of an evil mastermind as he's sometimes made out to be. He had to light a lot of money on fire to get into the position where he is now and a lot of his manipulations are just trying to dig himself out of a really bad investment. Things are going to have to go juuuuuust right for him to actually wind up with anything to show for 15+ years of loving around with dying retail giants. http://fortune.com/2017/03/31/sears-eddie-lampert-net-worth-hedge-fund/ Eddie Lampert's hedge fund has lost about half of its value in 2016. quote:Sears, making up about a third of Lampert's portfolio, was a major contributor to the the hedge fund's shrink, but investors have also abandoned the fund recently, taking their money with them. By the end of 2016, Lampert's fund held a mere $653 million—a sizable decline of 94% from the $16.5 billion it once managed at Sears' peak in 2007, according to securities filings. While its true he transferred the cherry Sears land holdings to a separate company owned by himself, I don't see how he's going to make back enough to come out on top of this ordeal. This article tries to break down the things he did to protect or carve off value from Sears: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/03/22/sears-holdings-ceo-eddie-lampert/99487518/
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Aug 1, 2017 18:41
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Yeah, I've heard those "he's profiting on their failure!" claims before, but it always sounds like he'd profit a lot more if it weren't failing.
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Aug 1, 2017 19:13
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Maybe the truth is that randroids are terrible people?
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Aug 1, 2017 19:15
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Krispy Kareem posted:It's mostly over capacity. Too many malls were built and retailers have far too many stores. Another issue in America was/is the owners of the mall itself insisting on high rents, which meant that the stores couldn't compete with the discounts of Amazon and the like, hence one way or another they were screwed. Like one mall in my area that's still mostly doing okay (at least all the stores are taken) is Crown Center which is very upscale, there's like a boutique pen store, a place that serves loose leaf Chinese tea, the world's most overpriced pharmacy outside of an airport, etc. I understand a lot of malls have gone in that direction in an attempt to survive. Theoretically a mall could still be habitable if the rents were cheap, but there may be some economics preventing that.
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Aug 1, 2017 19:28
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anonumos posted:http://fortune.com/2017/03/31/sears-eddie-lampert-net-worth-hedge-fund/
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Aug 1, 2017 20:07
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anonumos posted:
That's true, but it's not like a stock losing half its value. It's more like a stock portfolio reducing in value including withdrawals. Unless you can split them apart, you can't tell what the investment performance was.
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Aug 1, 2017 20:09
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Maxwell Lord posted:Theoretically a mall could still be habitable if the rents were cheap, but there may be some economics preventing that. Well, yeah. It's expensive to build and maintain a giant indoor space. That's the whole driver behind the shift to open-air shopping centers. High-end luxury chains are able to hack it indoors because those are the only consumers who are still willing to pay premium prices for a climate controlled shopping experience.
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Aug 1, 2017 20:21
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Straight White Shark posted:Well, yeah. It's expensive to build and maintain a giant indoor space. That's the whole driver behind the shift to open-air shopping centers. High-end luxury chains are able to hack it indoors because those are the only consumers who are still willing to pay premium prices for a climate controlled shopping experience. It's strange to think that malls were originally open air spaces. A lot of them were sealed up in the 70's and the standard was indoors into the 2000's, now they're trending back to open air spaces.
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Aug 1, 2017 20:32
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Maxwell Lord posted:Theoretically a mall could still be habitable if the rents were cheap, but there may be some economics preventing that. I'm also thinking that lower rents may also attract businesses that primarily serve non-white clientele and since no mall wants to be branded as "the black mall" or "Mexican mall," the high rents may serve as a gatekeeper of sorts.
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Aug 2, 2017 10:32
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Straight White Shark posted:Well, yeah. It's expensive to build and maintain a giant indoor space. That's the whole driver behind the shift to open-air shopping centers. High-end luxury chains are able to hack it indoors because those are the only consumers who are still willing to pay premium prices for a climate controlled shopping experience. I recall malls in the Philippines and probably other places do well when they're basically self-contained public air conditioned spaces. Heck, when I lived in a house with lovely air conditioning I used to become a mallrat during the summer just to get out of the heat.
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Aug 2, 2017 10:52
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Maxwell Lord posted:Another issue in America was/is the owners of the mall itself insisting on high rents, which meant that the stores couldn't compete with the discounts of Amazon and the like, hence one way or another they were screwed. Like one mall in my area that's still mostly doing okay (at least all the stores are taken) is Crown Center which is very upscale, there's like a boutique pen store, a place that serves loose leaf Chinese tea, the world's most overpriced pharmacy outside of an airport, etc. I understand a lot of malls have gone in that direction in an attempt to survive. One of the closest malls to me is owned by someone who refuses to charge feasible rents and basically smothers any business that decides to give it a try. The place feels like a hospice, if hospices left dead bodies around like empty storefronts.
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Aug 2, 2017 12:58
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Domestic Amuse posted:I'm also thinking that lower rents may also attract businesses that primarily serve non-white clientele and since no mall wants to be branded as "the black mall" or "Mexican mall," the high rents may serve as a gatekeeper of sorts. Yeah, there definitely seems to be a point in the lifecycle of malls around here where they start letting in lower rent stores and the mall's traditional white middle class clientele leaves for whiter pastures, furthering the death spiral.
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Aug 2, 2017 15:04
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Are rents that much different in other countries? Wandering around Montreal I'd see the weirdest little shops. Like shoe stores with way too little stock or a literal mannequin shop in prime retail location when they could sell those things anywhere. There's no way any of those shops would make fiscal sense in the US. I did hear that Montreal has some weird rules that require some internet or mail order businesses to maintain physical storefronts. Maybe that had something to do with it.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:05
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^ Fronts for money laundering.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:20
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Trabant posted:^ Fronts for money laundering. The shoe store, definitely (we were actually looking for shoes and it was closed on a Tuesday afternoon). But there still were a lot of businesses that didn't deal in cash and had prominent storefronts in an area that was pretty trendy. It was odd.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:29
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That, some businesses are basically on the ropes, some businesses are a passion/vanity project of a rich person's spouse, or the owner dies and the place limps along losing money, or the person who owns a lot of the real estate and is collecting rents from everyone also owns a business in one of their own buildings and it just sort of sits there etc. etc. A few of that last category are in my town--one literally looks like a large garage sale packed into an overflowing room/storefront.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:39
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Anyone have any local places you're pretty sure are fronts? We have an all you can eat pizza place here. As far as I know, it's not a chain. Yet they have at least ten catering vans. I've been there a few times and I know they do not do that much business to warrant those vans. The pizza itself is mediocre (I swear I get a weird banana aftertaste from it.)
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Aug 2, 2017 17:36
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Detective No. 27 posted:Anyone have any local places you're pretty sure are fronts? Is Doug their cook?
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Aug 2, 2017 17:42
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Detective No. 27 posted:Anyone have any local places you're pretty sure are fronts? There seem to be way too many psychics around, considering the real estate market around here.
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Aug 2, 2017 17:45
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Detective No. 27 posted:Anyone have any local places you're pretty sure are fronts?
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Aug 2, 2017 17:50
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Arsenic Lupin posted:There's an electric razor repair store two towns up from me. Holy poo poo.
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Aug 2, 2017 17:52
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Detective No. 27 posted:Anyone have any local places you're pretty sure are fronts? Someone just opened up a Family Video Rental in town. wtf
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Aug 2, 2017 17:53
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Detective No. 27 posted:Anyone have any local places you're pretty sure are fronts? Yeah, there are a few restaurants or stores which are always deserted, they have to be fronts for something. Arsenic Lupin posted:There's an electric razor repair store two towns up from me. 
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Aug 2, 2017 17:53
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AYCE pizza, now that's an odd concept. I've never been in a situation where I thought "I'd love to have even more slices of pizza, but the cost is holding me back." The economics of pizza seem perfect the way they are. I've definitely seen some storefronts that had to be fronting something else. Like a lampshade store that's been in business as long as I've lived -- on Long Island, which has basically the worst rent situation in the country. Shady business indeed  EDIT: and no, it's most decidedly not one of the areas of Long Island where rich people live Sir Lemming has a new favorite as of 17:58 on Aug 2, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 17:55
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pangstrom posted:That, some businesses are basically on the ropes, some businesses are a passion/vanity project of a rich person's spouse, or the owner dies and the place limps along losing money, or the person who owns a lot of the real estate and is collecting rents from everyone also owns a business in one of their own buildings and it just sort of sits there etc. etc. A few of that last category are in my town--one literally looks like a large garage sale packed into an overflowing room/storefront. I'm almost certain the rent situation is how Family Video is still around in my hometown. They're all connected to pizza places or other fast food joints, and I think they make most of their money from the rent because I never see anyone renting movies.
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Aug 2, 2017 17:55
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Sir Lemming posted:AYCE pizza, now that's an odd concept. I've never been in a situation where I thought "I'd love to have even more slices of pizza, but the cost is holding me back." The economics of pizza seem perfect the way they are. The pizzas are usually a bit smaller than normal. Peter Piper Pizza's been doing it for a decade and it seems to work for them. $7, I can't remember if that includes a drink or not. They only do it during the lunch hours. Monday through Thursday. It was actually kinda nice when I was working part time and got to go when it wasn't Summer break. The place I think is a front, just called The Pizza Buffet, does it all day every day. It's not a very high quality place all around. They even have really lovely spaghetti and baked chicken.
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Aug 2, 2017 18:04
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Pizza Hut used to do a lunch buffet.
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Aug 2, 2017 18:08
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