# Retail and stores not doing well and many stores are struggle to stay open? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 10, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190 "2017-04-10T19:14:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2017, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190/21 "2017-04-12T12:44:17Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Amazon and Wal-Mart have been putting the hammer on retail competitors for awhile. The scary thing is in some ways they are just ramping up the pressure. Right. Where is TG&Y, Woolworths, Woolco, Montgomery Wards, Venture, or Ben Franklin stores? Soon Kmart will be gone and maybe Sears. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190/22 "2017-04-13T01:41:29Z")
I wonder if some of this as to do with the Canadian recession? Where the interest rates are really low now to get a housing mortgage for people that have very little money to buy a house!!! Why? Because housing cost is beyond the reach of middle class now. Where not that far from being like San Francisco. Where a million dollar home will get you a very very very small starter home now. And the purchasing power is down. And the Canadian dollar that is really low now!! If some thing cost $600 in the US it cost $800 in Canada now!!! Wow !!! Wow !!! At one time the Canadian currency was almost at par with the American currency. May be some reasons Canadians are not buying stuff like they where before. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190/23 "2017-04-23T07:40:04Z")
Related to this thread but just in the news today from CNN!! Of massive about stores in the US are closing at an epic pace!! Wow!! Stores are closing at an epic pace!!:eek::eek::eek: > [@](#): > > Stores are closing at an epic pace. In fact, the retail industry could suffer far more store closures this year than ever. > > Brokerage firm Credit Suisse said in a research report released earlier this month that it’s possible more than 8,600 brick-and-mortar stores will close their doors in 2017. > > For comparison, the report says 2,056 stores closed down in 2016 and 5,077 were shuttered in 2015. The worst year on record is 2008, when 6,163 stores shut down. > **[Stores are closing at an epic pace](https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/22/news/credit-suisse-retail/index.html)** > > The retail industry could see far more store closures this year than ever, a new report says > [@](#): > > And onetime retail powerhouse Sears – which also owns Kmart – said in March that the company has “substantial doubt” that it can survive. It seem in US they also having similar problem to Canada where stores are closing and struggle to stay open? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190/24 "2017-04-23T12:51:27Z")
The chains mentioned by the OP are all American corporations, and doing business in Canada presents all sorts of issues that do not apply in the US, such as import duties, 25% erosion of the Canadian dollar, more seasonal economic adjustment, more sparsely populated distribution geography, labeling language, the list could go on. All these collectively push the Canadian market outside the box of US corporate retail models, to the point that it not worth messing with the diminishing returns. ---
**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:** [April 23, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190/25 "2017-04-23T14:37:40Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > Related to this thread but just in the news today from CNN!! Of massive about stores in the US are closing at an epic pace!! Frankly those numbers seem crazily small: > [@](#): > > According to the National Retail Federation, total sales from the more than 3.6 million retail establishments in the U.S. reached about $3.2 trillion in 2014, and retailers supported more than 12 million jobs in the U.S. > **[2015retailindustryreport.pdf](https://www.globalmna.com/assets/2015retailindustryreport.pdf)** Mom-and-pop retail establishments open and close at high rate (and there are huge numbers of them) [Your neighbor opens an antique store; it doesn’t make any money so she closes it a couple years later and gets a job at the local supermarket…] ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190/26 "2017-04-30T05:02:32Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The chains mentioned by the OP are all American corporations, and doing business in Canada presents all sorts of issues that do not apply in the US, such as import duties, 25% erosion of the Canadian dollar, more seasonal economic adjustment, more sparsely populated distribution geography, labeling language, the list could go on. All these collectively push the Canadian market outside the box of US corporate retail models, to the point that it not worth messing with the diminishing returns. Base on that news article it saying stores like K-mart, Sears, Target, JC Penney’s and Macy’s are at very high risk of closing and going out of businesses. I would think similar situation is happening in Canada. Many of the K-mart, Sears, Target, JC Penney’s and Macy’s have closed lot of stores everywhere and are at very high risk of going out of businesses. The news article cite E-Commerce as reason thus people buying online as reason. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190/27 "2017-04-30T14:58:34Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > It might be dropping, but I’m not sure. There’s certainly still a huge gap. I found this [article with statistics](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-surprising-demographics-of-who-shops-online-and-on-mobile-2014-6) > > 40% of online shoppers are from households with incomes in the top 18% of the US. That’s _huge_. > > People buy stuff online for lots of reasons, but when I think about why I increasingly buy things online, it’s for convenience, because I’m under so much more time pressure. The richer you are, the more you’re willing to buy something right now from your phone/computer and skip the 15 minute trip to the store. > > Increasing access to the internet won’t change how the value proposition of the internet is higher for richer people. That article is more than 2 years old. I’m sure things have evened out more in the years after it was written. StG [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retail-and-stores-not-doing-well-and-many-stores-are-struggle-to-stay-open/784190.md?page=1)