A 'tsunami' of store closings expected to hit retail

[longknife]

Published: Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 By: Krystina Gustafso

The only possible reason I would EVER go to this channel is because it was a Drudge link.

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On Tuesday, Sears said that it will shutter its flagship store in downtown Chicago in April. It's the latest of about 300 store closures in the U.S. that Sears has made since 2010. The news follows announcements earlier this month of multiple store closings from major department stores J.C. Penney and Macy's.

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Everywhere I go in Vegas, I see empty store fronts and stores closing for lack of business. This is effecting fast food and sit-in restaurants as well. And, IMHO, it ain't gonna get any better soon.

Read piece and watch video @ A 'tsunami' of store closings expected to hit retail

 

[emilynghiem]

I understand when the budget/economy shrinks, people spend less and just buy the necessities.
But where is the money GOING that people ARE spending?

Is it online shopping where things are shipped instead of driving?
Are people just going to the grocery store for food and skipping eating out?

Some groups that promote more sustainable financial development
already recommend
* investing in rental property and reserving your salary for that,
even taking out your 401K and buying property with a greater return.
if more people do this, they would save their money and cut their spending budgets
* patronizing locally owned businesses and services. some communities started circulating
local currency so the money/labor/services stay local and
reduce how much of the resources are pumped out of the community
buying from local mom and pop establishments and not from
Wal-Marts that kill small businesses with undercutting competition practices
(like lowering their prices long enough to put others out of business,
then raising them again; or forcing manufacturers to sell to them at a loss
or they won't buy their products at all)

I heard of whole towns all but shut down. So I wonder if the local
currency idea could save them, by allowing people to hire each other's
labor and use the money to buy each other's goods and services
to keep the economy flowing locally. I mean, how do villages in
Africa or Asia survive? if they don't wait on federal reserve money to flow through?

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Everywhere I go in Vegas, I see empty store fronts and stores closing for lack of business. This is effecting fast food and sit-in restaurants as well. And, IMHO, it ain't gonna get any better soon.

The Albertson's on Eastern and Horizon Ridge is closing as well. I just got a flyer in the mail yesterday

 

[jwoodie]

Sears is an outmoded business model which held on for years due to its ownership of the real estate underneath its stores. Now that the real estate market has recovered somewhat, it will be closing its stores and selling/leasing them to others.

P.S. Native Americans flocked to the Spanish missions for food and protection from their compatriots.

 

[william the wie]

Take eating out.

There are at least two catering services within one mile of my house that provide meals for two or four.

I have lost count of the number of multi-restaurant delivery services because I don't use them.

The local grocery stores and convenience stores provide pre-packaged and fresh meals.

But as to stores in general why use them? The wife and I have 4-5 computers and use the internet for most product purchases and many services as well.

Then there is tax flight Toro is increasingly the norm rather than the exception of people working in investment firms residing in FL. A change in the deferred compensation laws has caused migration of investment services to South FL to go into overdrive.

 

[Bombur]

The rise of online purchasing and some serious mistakes by JC Penney have really hurt mall retail. Even Macy's felt the pinch when JCP saw the decline. All those stores at the mall feed off one another.

so.... /OBAMA!

 

[SteadyMercury]

The rise of online purchasing

You nailed it.

The basis for most of the recent flurry of threads related to the retail closings tsunami is a recent article in the WSJ about how the rapid expansion of both online purchasing and online browsing has left many brick and mortar chains with an overbuilt legacy model. Said article and related foot traffic data is being latched onto as some end-of-days scenario for the economy.

Bottom line these store closings are not an indicator of trends in retail sales:

 

[Politico]

These chains closing is because they have been run like shit for years. If the economy did anything it extended their death spasms an extra 5 years.

 

[william the wie]

Slo-mo liquidation was about the only option they had that I can see.

 

[andy753]

Can anyone one of the internet genius's give me an actual number of business's closed in 2013? Now give me the number of business's opened in 2013. Ok, now you can debate.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Can anyone one of the internet genius's give me an actual number of business's closed in 2013? Now give me the number of business's opened in 2013. Ok, now you can debate.

Sure, as soon as you learn how to use an apostrophe.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Sears and Penny's have been mismanaged for so long that it will be impossible to turn them around. They are going the way of Monrtgomery Ward decades ago. I think of Sears as a sort of wounded animal that should have been put out of their missery, way before the year 2000.

I buy virutally everything on the internet. I bought the delux edition of Turboxtax(new, never opened) with free shipping on Ebay today for $40. It is $50 at Walmart. The paramters have shifted, and brick and morter stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood , Barns and Noble, etc. simply failed to enter the 21st century. Amazon is going to kick everybody's ass, by changing the way the world shops.Hell, they already have!

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Sears and Penny's have been mismanaged for so long that it will be impossible to turn them around.

Sears is being run by the same idiots who ran K-Mart into the ground.