Indeed. Borders attempted to do pretty much the same, and they bit the dust in 2011.
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.
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?
No, not seriously. It’s a joke. I’m guessing you meant ex-professors.
Actually I meant woooosh
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.
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.
No, jet.com is declining.
Instead they are talking about Walmart+
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.
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. 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.
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.
*duplicate
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.
Sears used to ship entire houses. (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.
We started watching the Frontline documentary 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.)
My closest mall has 3 or 4 gyms now. So weird.
This article would seem to say otherwise:
Restaurant bankruptcies are increasing, and more could be on the way
Some key quotes:
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.