It will be interesting to see what happens if and when Sear's Holding decides to dump Sear's to see if they simply fade away or another company will fold the Sear's stores into their business? If Sear's stores simply fade away, other than some emotional sadness, I wonder if it will basically go unnoticed in the grand scheme of retail sales? We can assume if Sear's is not currently profitable and/or viable that most of the consumers have already found other places to shop...
My guess is that if they go under, someone will buy the name at the bankruptcy auction--probably China
Not in the least. Consumption in America is recovering just fine. (See Personal Consumption chart here.) What is "crashing" are sales by Retail Outlets. Whist Internet Sales are skyrocketing. Welcome to the Internet World ...
The predominant factor is "Who is spending money?" And that is not happening in rural communities that have suffered most from the Great Recession. (Even before, these smaller communities were making goods that were being replaced by China.) When one looks at where the better jobs are being created, inevitably it is closer to the larger population cities. And, as I never tire of saying, the Internet is having its impact due to lower overall distribution costs. (Until, at the very least, Amazon decides to make-a-decent-profit and raises its prices.) So, if anything, blame the Internet ...
Rural communities spend money every day. I think you are picturing Sears in its current form not as what it could be. It is about adapting one's business model to have a sustainable path going forward not about "better jobs"...
Exactly. Wal-Mart is a success because of rural communities. Wal-Mart put big box stores in smaller communities, which is one (of many) reasons they dominate the market.
Wal-Mart sucks all the wealth out of rural communities. Because all the money spent at Wal-Mart doesn't go back to the local community, it gets shipped off to a central headquarters which is NOT in the community.
I think Sear's has lost any unique identity in the retail sales arena. It is very difficult to find an answer why to shop at Sear's today? The old goats like me have used Sear's since we were born and still have 'some' identity with it but the other 90% IMO could care less about the place. So I'm thinking it would be suicide for another company to rescue the Sear's name. Further, in order for Sear's as a future new company to find an identity with consumers, the company needs a complete overhaul, complete paradigm shift...
This is correct but is the same with all major corporate retailers, including Ace Hardware, Home Depot, A&W, John Deere, Tractor Supply, all chain grocery stores, etc. etc.
And so? What you say above is typical of any market-economy. It's overall GDP that counts, not the bits 'n pieces ...
Well, on my last visit to upstate New York, my dad says the whole area is poor now. A Wal-mart supercenter sucked the region dry. Now nobody has money anymore, and people are desperate. All because for years the local farmers thought they could save a few bucks instead of shop at the local stores. Now nobody has nothing. And I'm not sure if I remember right, but Wal-mart might move their superstore elsewhere because they're not getting the business. And meanwhile the local shops have all gone out of business because no one is making any money anymore to spend it. The situation is bad.
But in the process it enriched the lives of rural people who are no longer dependent on the local predators who ran grocery stores with "store credit" and basically enslaved the local community with over-priced products. Those local predators weren't helping the community, they preyed on them. My grandparents lived in a rural town with such a store. Luckily they had the money to have good cars/trucks and were able to drive to a larger town to buy their goods.
That is true for every national corporation. Amazon sucks money; Walmart sucks money; Wall Street sucks money.
Foreign investors seem to like disguising themselves behind traditional american brands though. A Chinese furniture company could use it as a front and open Sears Furniture stores, for instance, if the price were right. I never really understood the whole notion of Kmart buying Sears to begin with if they were not going to merge into single megastores. It kind of reminds me of places where you can see two or three 7-11's in the same block, but I think they are owned by the Japanese now so don't really care if they go under as well.
What sort of gibberish is this? You are implying that Wal-Mart is the reason farmers have no more money? Wal-Mart buys their produce? Come on, but your brain-cap on ... PS: Were you to make the same observation further south around Poughkeepsie, then I'd be really concerned. That's where IBM has/had a major computer development/production center. The job outlook there is not so bad - see here.
My uncle ran such a store in rural, central Massachusetts*. He was gouging nobody, and I never heard anyone complain about the general price level in the small stores all located in central downtown. What turned commerce topsy-turvy was the advent of malls, malls, malls galore. Because American did not want to walk "downtown". They preferred "driving to the mall". And now they are "driving to the Internet". Commerce has been changing since time immemorial, often right under our feet. So, let's not point too quickly the finger-of-blame ... *What has changed in the minds of "some people" is the fact that their jobs do not pay as much as they would like such that they can afford all that they want. This has been a societal riddle for a long, long time - it is nothing new.
The walking thing cracks me up. As part of our downtown revitalization efforts, my city thus far has built two off street parking sites to address the convenience issue--and effing built them on the fringes where nobody would go anyway. Everybody is like WTF were you people thinking. Your buddies must have owned the properties or something. They are now looking at turning an old warehouse into a parking garage. Just tear the stupid thing down and build a proper parking deck. Forget the whole preserving and re-purposing antiquated buildings crap. I don't care how much steel you put into it, I don't want my car in a 120 year old building when it comes crashing down.
I read you. But there is SOMETHING in maintaining the architecture with which the town was built. It is an historical heritage that should be safeguarded. Yes, of course, structurally the building needs to be strengthened to be a high-density parking lot. But even that solution might be cheaper than an all-knew parking garage of N-stories. Unless, of course we actually want gray, gray, gray concrete cities, so then we deserve them ...
PS: Europe's downtown parking challenge is quite different. Most of the buildings are at least 3, 4, 5 centuries old. There is simply no question of taking any building down to make a storied parking garage. So, the cities went underground to build parking accomodations. (Rome found an ancient underground quarry where thousands upon thousands of Romans had been hurriedly "buried" (meaning simply laid there) having died from the plague ...)
There is nothing particularly historic or interesting about a brick warehouse with no exterior elements of interest. It is just brick walls with rotted out wood framed windows. Those old tobacco warehouses were about as utilitarian as they could get and my city is full of them. Salvage the bricks to use on other things, but most of them they really need to come down if they truly want to revitalize the area. They are quite depressing looking. They also want more green space but then refuse to take down any buildings. When you have these monster brick blahs occupying whole blocks, you are not going to keep them and have green space unless you want to plant trees in the middle of the road. Sure you can keep some of them, but just selectively taking down ten would completely reinvigorate the area.
Maybe your Uncle was an honest shopkeeper, but most weren't. They gouged and preyed on the people they could.
There is a Walmart about 20 miles from my home, it's not a super-market but it's a gigantic market. Interestingly, immediately adjacent to this Walmart, in the same shopping development, all within +/-100 yards of Walmart, you'll find fast food places, an auto store, a phone store, a Home Depot, an Office Max, and a tire store, plus others I can't remember...and ALL of them are direct competitors with Walmart. Yet there they are sharing the same consumers with Walmart and apparently doing okay. In my little town we have an Ace Hardware, which is independently owned yet part of a national corporation, and the locals refer to it as 'the bank' because the prices are so high you leave all your money there! So here's a local store, one who probably whines about Walmart and Home Depot 20 miles away, yet their prices are ridiculous! So, I don't buy this stuff about a Walmart sucking the region dry?? If anything I see the exact opposite in which major development happens all around Walmart, including homes and apartments, including transit hubs, etc. Obviously there is good and bad as we evolve our retailing but right now I'm thinking there is more good...
There was absolutely no difference. But, admittedly, it was a long, long time ago - when honesty was a prime attribute of character. We've come a long way down-hill since then. We are now the Muney-Muney-Muney country ...