Rob's thought for the day........stores ??

Rob Keeble

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Location
GTA Ontario Canada
Hi All

Been thinking again :D:rofl: and wondering do you see real stores being around in the long term. I aint thinking in terms of 10 years but say will your grandchildrens kids still go to a store for shopping?

We had a thread the other day which brought up the issue of what the big box stocks and what we have to do when we want something more niched in nature and sold in lower volumes. Many also felt gas prices and distance factored into this equation.

Now many wholesalers even offer the opportunity for you to be a store front on the web and they will drop ship product directly to your customer.

When i think of the overhead cost factor the only thing i know stores experience on an ongoing basis is increase in overhead. Rent increases each lease renewal and usually evenhas built in escallation clauses for each year of the lease, labor and utilities all increase in cost and at the end of the day the space the store has is finite so amortization of these costs across the product sold in the store is a must.

This has got to push the store sold products into a never ending escalation of price compared to the same product sold via the web.

At some point shipping costs with the way they have declined over the years as volumes have risen will become viable to absorb and surely make a physical store become redundant.


I was reminded of this issue the other day when i had cause to call back the past regarding an exhibition i spent huge dollars onattending way back in the day when the internet boom first started.

The booth opposite my stand was Mall dot com. Had just been given millions in venture capital money with every pundit forecasting the end of the world for shopping malls. Panic abounded the Shopping Mall industry in those days to the extent that the industry as a whole spent billions on the online side of shopping. They wired up the brick and mortar sites but it all collapsed and life went on as per usual.

So whats your take?


Perhaps we should have a poll but i know many dont like polls here so ....
 
If you go to a mall these days almost all of the stores are either chothes or cell phone stores anymore. I can see the cell phone stores move to the internet, but like Don said as long as there are women I believe there will be chothes stores.
 
Store will be around as long as there are women on earth. My wife already is training my grand daughter in the art of shopping.

:rofl:

I have to agree. I also see a lot more of the ship-to-store gimmicks showing up to try and bring customers through the door.

Though, I had a friend that wanted a discount at a local electronics store. The manager said he wouldn't do that. My friend went to the store's on-line site, found they had discount for site to store, bought the product on-line standing next to the guy from his phone and walked out the door with the product and got the discount he wanted. ;)

That said, I'd probably still buy it without the discount depending what it was to keep the store around. Something about hands on touch and feel that help when making decisions. I think we've also become accustom to convenience, as well as executing the hunt and kill (find) instinct we all have.
 
The two large malls (shopping centers) within viable distance for me, do not see me very often---about once every two or three years. They do not have anything that I am looking for. They have women's clothes, cell phones, shoes, and in the clothing lines, absolutely nothing for a 5 foot 6 inch 118 pound male.

They both have a Sears and a Penny's. I tried Sears, Mail order, for a Sand Flee sanding mop over a year ago. The delivery company could not find my house and returned the product to Sears. Sears opted to send me another sanding mop or give me a refund. I was in a hurry and opted for the refund they offered. I have yet to see the refund. We had a similar experience when we purchased a vacuum cleaner in the store. We hung around for over a half an hour because they could not find it in their storeroom. We cancelled the order. That's enough griping. Actually, any amount of griping is enough.

Anyway the few times I have gone to the mall, there are very few customers. The Christmas rush there looked about like a normal day in May 10 or 15 years ago.

I don't buy over the web unless it is a commodity that I am familiar with or something I cannot find in a store. I DO LIKE to see, feel, inspect, etc. a product before they get my money.

Enjoy,

JimB

ps. I have a wonderful wife. When she wants some clothes, she knows what she wants. She goes to the store that is apt to have it. She buys it. She goes out to lunch and comes home.
I wonder if the fact that her ancestry is the House of Glendowen has anything to do with that?
 
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OK, I'll be the token women here. I hate malls. I hate crowds. I tend to go to the single stores, like Kohl's, HD, Costco, etc., but still get frustrated that clothes now days come with a lot of hardware on it. Can't someone buy something that is basic? :pullhair: OK, glamour is not my middle name :)

I went to the mall for the first time in about three years, a few weeks ago and went crazy. Did my best to get out of there as fast as I could. So granted, I'm not the stereotypical woman :rofl::rofl::rofl:, but not all of us enjoy that experience.

Now I know why Brent gets about 3 boxes a day from "Brown" :rofl:
 
I think it will go multiple ways. You will have small, specialty type of stores, the mom and pop or person with a unique items that sell better in a gallery setting.
Then you will have web based businesses, that get smart and have a store front in the warehouse for local customers/word of mouth and local pickups and yet international web presence.
LONG term (hundreds? of years) people may be going more agrigarian, due to lack of jobs as we know them, while the can go inside and print what they need on 3d printers and give tools to machines/robots to grow their own food. Of course this doesn't take into account jobs that don't exist, nor can I fathom, but with population growth, I still wonder if statistically we won't have more unemployeed as we automate.
 
I've had the same observations about shopping malls. I went to the local one before Christmas, and all it took was a quick walk from one end to the other to remind myself why I don't have much use for shopping malls anymore.

I don't think brick and mortar stores will disappear completely, but I do predict we'll continue to buy more and more stuff online as time goes on. Some things though, like lumber, aren't very practical to ship to the end user. Plus, when buying some things (like lumber again), I think most of us prefer to be able to pick through the stock and choose the individual pieces we want.

...So granted, I'm not the stereotypical woman...

Ya think? :D You're more "one of the guys" than some men I know. (And that's totally meant as a compliment...I know there's a girly-girl side to you, too.)

And from this point forward, in my mind your middle name will be Glamour. Yes, yes it will. :yes: :rofl:
 
Wouldn't the UPS guys love to consolidate their shipments to us and just come once a week instead of daily??? Makes me think of starting a business.

Reno - the largest concentration of distribution space per capita. It cracks me up that a lot of what we order is sitting in a warehouse 30 miles away, but they won't ship until it meets their specified on-line time to get to us...
 
I agree with Randal. Small Mom and Pop and specialty stores will be the only ones to survive in the long run. That being said, larger big box stores as well as some of the larger names in the malls will have to pull back and get leaner and meaner to survive.

Ask yourself this question. Aside from clothes shopping, is their any reason at all to go into a Sears store for example? I can find the same, if not better quality of goods on line with free shipping everyday of the week. On line retailers like Amazon Prime give me the chance to not only save money and sales tax, but they take out the human factor (clerks with attitudes or ones that are commission driven, lines at the checkout, other annoying customers) which to me is a priceless part of my purchase.

Will the lowes, BORG, sears, etc entirely dissapear?...no.....but they better embrace the web and make the brick and mortar stores better and sharper....and real quick.
 
Owning the real estate is a big factor in determining how long a store will survive.
Alot of corp stores these days are purchasing the land instead of leasing. Large chains here on LI are closing stores where they dont own the land, and opening stores where they do own it.
I go to the mall once every 5 years, whenever Im in the mood for a soft pretzel or cinnabun.
Now that Im trying to diet, I guess I wont ever step into a mall again.
 
Fast Food/restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores will probably be our only physical stores in the future. (However, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep our Sparks, NV Costco store open with my every Friday purchases :rofl::rofl::rofl:

At one point in time (and may still be), McDonald's was the largest land owner in the free world.
 
One example I have never understood, shoe shopping.:huh:

I know a couple of people who do most of it online.:dunno: I've had shoes the same size, vary to much from one brand to another, or even in the same brand, that I want to try them on instead of buying and returning.

Now, how morbid do you want to get? No stores, so are we going to ship a body, or burn it in the backyard? Some places like funeral homes, just don't lend well to online.
 
Now, how morbid do you want to get? No stores, so are we going to ship a body, or burn it in the backyard? Some places like funeral homes, just don't lend well to online.

i really dont think that we need to have funeral homes at all no one lives there, and its just another way for someone to get intot he finances of the deceased family.. just put them to rest out back and be done with it save lots of money and know exactly where they are or were..and to have to get a permit or licence for the final dealings with said person is also ridiculous.. the gov. doesnt own us do they?
and i can see where bill satko is at in the next generation as well one mishap with atomic weapons and its a domino effect that cant be repaired fast enough..
 
OK, I'll be the token women here. I hate malls. I hate crowds. I tend to go to the single stores, like Kohl's, HD, Costco, etc., but still get frustrated that clothes now days come with a lot of hardware on it. Can't someone buy something that is basic? :pullhair: OK, glamour is not my middle name :)

Here you go, Sharon... my wife hates shopping just about that much. And she shares your opinion of clothes styles. She wouldn't hate it as much if there were actual clothes out there that she liked. Or shoes that fit. etc etc.

Swimwear is a perfect example of what we dislike about malls. Last year the store was all browns and lime green. Seriously. That was "the" colour. Which means if you don't like brown, then you pretty much couldn't buy a swimsuit last year at the local mall.
 
Here you go, Sharon... my wife hates shopping just about that much. And she shares your opinion of clothes styles. She wouldn't hate it as much if there were actual clothes out there that she liked. Or shoes that fit. etc etc.

Swimwear is a perfect example of what we dislike about malls. Last year the store was all browns and lime green. Seriously. That was "the" colour. Which means if you don't like brown, then you pretty much couldn't buy a swimsuit last year at the local mall.

Very, very true...that's why I bought a Realtree camo bathing suit last year from Cabelas and I love it (good looking blond body was optional and I couldn't afford it, so Brent is stuck with his current redhead) :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Seriously, you'd think they would cater to the folks who actually have money in our society...unless parents are giving out really huge allowances these days.
 
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