# It funny and sad to see retail try to save itself **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 26, 2020, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580 "2020-02-26T22:44:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/121 "2020-03-03T22:51:28Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Bookstores have been trying this model for a while. It didn’t save Hastings. Indeed. Borders attempted to do pretty much the same, and they bit the dust in 2011. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/122 "2020-03-03T23:20:41Z")
> [@Kovitlac](#): > > This feels so backwards to me. I’d rather drive a short ways and try clothes on before buying them, rather than have to wait for them to arrive, trying them on after the fact, then if/when they don’t fit packing them up, leaving my home to ship them, and then maybe having to pay a shipping fee. That’s the sort of thing that very much varies by person - if I’m going to buy clothes in person,I’m pretty much gong to have to do it on a weekend, because after work doesn’t leave me much time to get there, shop and eat dinner at some point before the stores close at 9. I’m not thrilled about shopping on the weekend because it invariably ends up taking up most of my day - plus I get annoyed when nothing I like is available in my size. On the other hand, when I buy online, I’m usually buying a brand I know, so I rarely return items that don’t fit. When I do, I pack them back up, usually get free return shipping label at drop them at the UPS access point around the corner on my way to work. I don’t buy all my clothes online- but I do buy nearly all of my shoes online. Beats the hell out of spending an hour or two looking for a pair I like in my size and often being unsuccessful. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/123 "2020-03-03T23:28:12Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I believe the point was that Home Depot has no reason to hire the ex-construction guy as opposed to the ex-burger flipper or the ex-PhD. In fact a bad economy will just flood them with applicants, who will be fed into the corporate resume filter which will select the guy in the suit with no misspellings who has a masters in business. > > And no matter who they hire, they won’t bother to tell the guy they put at the plumbing department desk where the teflon tape is. I know that it’s not uncommon for MDs to lose their medical license, but how on earth does that happen to a PhD? And what happens? They can no longer practice philosophy? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/124 "2020-03-03T23:34:06Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > I know that it’s not uncommon for MDs to lose their medical license, but how on earth does that happen to a PhD? And what happens? They can no longer practice philosophy? Seriously? ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/125 "2020-03-03T23:36:47Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Seriously? No, not seriously. It’s a joke. I’m guessing you meant ex-_professors_. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/126 "2020-03-03T23:53:46Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > No, not seriously. It’s a joke. I’m guessing you meant ex-_professors_. Actually I meant _woooosh_ ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/127 "2020-03-04T00:02:42Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Walmart is rumored to be developing their version of Amazon prime with free shipping and fast delivery They are working on it but they are way way behind Amazon. Walmart’s systems and facilities were designed for distribution to stores instead of small order fulfillment to consumers. The machinery, processes and algorithms are very different between those two models, which is why Walmart is starting from scratch with their fulfillment centers. They have about 6 compared to Amazon’s 175. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/128 "2020-03-04T00:13:39Z")
In the old days of ordering out of Sears catalog shipping times were measured in weeks, not single digits of days. Being able to ship slow meant shipping cheaply via truck or even train, which saved money. _Routine_ two-day and next-day delivery was the thing with Amazon. They somehow made it work, but it’s hard to compete because that means for a lot of things you _have to_ ship via air, and that’s more expensive. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/129 "2020-03-04T00:19:59Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > It’s called [jet.com](http://jet.com) and been part of Walmart since 2016, with little success. No, [jet.com](http://jet.com) is declining. > [@](#): > > Walmart has also shown a willingness to change course if something isn’t working. The retail giant acquired [Jet.com](http://Jet.com) in 2016 for $3.3 billion. The company announced in June 2019 that it would absorb [Jet.com](http://Jet.com) staff as part of what The Wall Street Journal called a “winding down.” > **[Amazon Primed: Walmart+ Prime Challenger, Food Delivery Service Launched,...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paularmstrongtech/2020/03/01/amazon-primed-walmart--prime-challenger-food-delivery-service-launched-coronavirus-gouging/)** > > ‘Amazon Primed' is just a tiny recap of the larger stories that dominated the headlines this week surrounding everyone's favourite cardboard abuser, Amazon. Instead they are talking about Walmart+ > [@](#): > > As soon as next month, Walmart plans to start publicly testing a membership program called Walmart+, according to sources. The program is expected to essentially launch as a rebrand of Walmart’s existing Delivery Unlimited service, which charges customers $98 a year for unlimited, same-day delivery of fresh groceries from one of the 1,600-plus Walmart stores in the US where the program is available… Sources said that the amount of the Walmart+ fee could still change or the company might test multiple price points. > > But the long-term vision for Walmart+ is for the program to add more perks, which could include discounts on prescription drugs at Walmart pharmacies and fuel at Walmart gas stations, as well as a Scan & Go service that would allow shoppers to check out in Walmart stores without waiting in line — a tool Walmart briefly tested but discontinued nearly two years ago. > **[Walmart is quietly working on an Amazon Prime competitor called Walmart+](https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/27/21154357/walmart-plus-walmart-grocery-delivery-unlimited-membership-amazon-prime)** > > Amazon Prime has devastated traditional retail. Walmart is about to fight back. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/130 "2020-03-04T00:52:45Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Bookstores have been trying this model for a while. It didn’t save Hastings. Book clubs are generally not successful. Getting a group of teen girls to sit around chatting and trying on clothes has a plausible chance of success. Might not. I’d give it a go if my alternative was certain death. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/131 "2020-03-04T13:12:16Z")
Books stores are a good example of the “thinning isn’t helping” issue I posted about. Okay, so Borders/Walden and so on are gone. Barnes & Noble is still around. With so little chain brick-and-mortar competition and a supposed uptick in physical book sales, one would think it would be doing better. [Not at all](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_%26_Noble#2010s). Losses, store closings, layoffs. The usual. Just found out that the last B&N close to us is gone. And “close” is a misnomer. Now it would be a _really_ long drive to get to one. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/132 "2020-03-04T15:48:38Z")
Online shopping is also causing brick and mortar stores to add more services. For example, at Wal-Mart, I can go online, add anything in the store to my cart, pay for it, and swing by after work, park outside and someone loads everything I bought into my car. Anything except booze. For some reason, my state law won’t allow it. All of this at no additional charge. There’s nothing technologically fancy about that. This could have been done in 1988, of course not online, but maybe by faxing your order to the store. Online sales have forced these stores to add more services to stay relevant. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/133 "2020-03-04T15:57:34Z")
\*duplicate ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/134 "2020-03-04T16:04:30Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Books stores are a good example of the “thinning isn’t helping” issue I posted about. > > Okay, so Borders/Walden and so on are gone. Barnes & Noble is still around. With so little chain brick-and-mortar competition and a supposed uptick in physical book sales, one would think it would be doing better. [Not at all](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_%26_Noble#2010s). Losses, store closings, layoffs. The usual. > > Just found out that the last B&N close to us is gone. And “close” is a misnomer. Now it would be a _really_ long drive to get to one. There is hope. B&N’s new CEO is James Daunt, he turned around the Waterstones book store chain in the UK by changing a few things (from memory: making book store a place people want to go, changing how deals are structured with publishers, etc.). You would have to read an article to get the full details but it does seem to be working. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2020, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/135 "2020-03-04T16:46:30Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > How does the problem of shipping fit into this story?E commerce depends on shipping, of course. > > In the old days of the Sears catalog, I think it would take weeks to get your product. > Then, when Amazon started, it was books only. A book is easy to put in the mail, and most people don’t mind if it takes a week to arrive, and then they would expect it to fit in their mailbox. > > But what I think surprised everybody was the development of fast shipping. The concept that it was practical to ship _everything_, of every size and weight, and deliver it within 48 hours. We take it for granted now, but it takes a _massive_ infrastructure. > > Just like the internet, which existed in primitive form in the 1980’s (Bulletin Boards, etc), but virtually nobody imagined that it would grow to what we know now. > How many people in 1990 would have dreamed of expecting the UPS delivery guy to leave expensive purchases on their porch? Was it even possible? And would consumers accept it? [Sears used to ship entire houses](https://www.curbed.com/2018/10/16/17984616/sears-catalog-home-kit-mail-order-prefab-housing). (In pieces.) Back in the 1930’s and earlier. People routinely ordered large items from Sears – I’ve got a 1950’s catalog full of among other things full-size furniture and appliances; not to mention farm equipment including grain elevators and manure spreaders – all through its existence as a catalog store. No, orders didn’t get there within 48 hours; more like a couple of weeks, part of which time was taken up with the time it took a mailed-in order to get to Sears. But the size and weight of what was ordered wasn’t the issue. Really, the whole point of the Sears catalog was that you could order just about anything by mail. People were no longer restricted to what was available locally. As other mail order catalogs became common, and as greater ease of travel made it easier for more people to go shop in a large city with more choice of items, this became less of an advantage. But when they started drastically cutting down what they carried – I think that as much as anything was what got them into trouble. They’d been the place where you could get anything. When Sears became just another place where you could only get some things, they didn’t have an edge over lots of other places where you could get those same things. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/136 "2020-03-05T12:44:28Z")
We started watching the _Frontline_ [documentary](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/amazon-empire/) on Amazon last night. IIRC, the stats on books are something like 60% paper copy, 80% e-book copy market share for Amazon. That’s a large share, but seems to leave room for one chain like B&N to do well. (The documentary is scary in terms of the PR lengths Amazon goes to. Over and over Amazon dismisses other peoples’ stats on Bad Things but refuses to provide their own stats. We are living in an era where you can just make any claim you want and get away with it.) ---
**Author:** ![InsomniaMama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ad7895/32.png) [@InsomniaMama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InsomniaMama)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/137 "2020-03-05T22:51:32Z")
My closest mall has 3 or 4 gyms now. So weird. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/138 "2020-03-06T01:56:35Z")
This article would seem to say otherwise: [Restaurant bankruptcies are increasing, and more could be on the way](https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/restaurant-bankruptcies-are-increasing-more-could-be-way) Some key quotes: > [@](#): > > Go back to November, and there have been seven bankruptcies accounting for 13 restaurant chains. That’s not including the filing by big Sonic Drive-In franchisee SD Holdings. > > In its report, Fitch cited reasons for the industry’s challenges that will surprise nobody reading this post: “a long period of declining sales due to heightened competition, shifting consumer tastes, rising competition from food delivery options and the inability to maintain brand relevancy, along with higher labor costs due to increasing minimum wages.” > > “Despite a strong economy and modest same-restaurant sales growth in 2019, traffic trends remain weak, a dynamic that is expected to persist in 2020,” Fitch wrote in its report. It noted that shifts in consumer preferences, as baby boomers eat out less and younger Gen Z and millennial consumers eat out more, is making more restaurant chains irrelevant. > > Retail shifts are also influencing behavior, because consumers aren’t shopping all that much. ---
**Author:** ![Mrdeals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Mrdeals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrdeals)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580/139 "2020-03-06T03:02:34Z")
I know its late in the thread, but here is my perspective as a business owner. I own(ed) a chain of 3 stores, and went through a major transformation and effectively only own 1, and became a landlord to another. When i owned all 3 i had: #1 Liquidation Store (Started 2015) #2 Grocery Store (Started 2017) #3 Grocery Store w/Pizza Restaurant (Started 2018) I currently only have store #1 and became the landlord to store #2. Store #3, i had to close down because of staffing issues (literally the only reason) constant problems with no shows, stealing, etc. I went through 30 employees in 9 months. Store #2 was did well, until Dollar General came to town. It was still profitable but too much work for almost no money. So i gave the store to the general manager (who had worked there for 20 years and wanted to buy it anyway) so she now runs the store, and i am the landlord. Store #3 sales were actually up 30% year over year, so now thats what i am focusing on. I think as long as a brick and mortar store has a niche that customers are seeking, they can survive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-funny-and-sad-to-see-retail-try-to-save-itself/848580.md?page=6)