Brick an mortar business plan vs amazon: the convenience store mentality?

[Gene Parmesan 4002]

2 hours ago, Lobo said:

You think that’s a piece of shit move?

Yes absolutely.  Everyone can admit that there are products that you are better off seeing/testing them before purchasing.  There are some online options to do that with clothes, but it can be cumbersome.  Of course the department store is more expensive because they have significant overhead in offering you a service that is currently necessary.  So online retailers/consumers are leaching off that until said physical store goes under.

[Guest Lobo]

Gotcha.  I agree about bleeding time from folks on commissions.  I thought the previous post was just people who go into stores to just try on clothes and shit.  and then go home and order them.  But yes, as someone who worked a cuople jobs on commission, the time waste is the worst.  But I have no issue with somebody who goes into Banana Republic to try on pants, gets some help from a floor associate, and goes home to order them cheaper from some online discount center.  Yeah, going into a local furniture store and spending a half day planning a room with their team and then going home and getting it somewhere slightly cheaper, yeah---that's a shitty move.  

But the vast, vast majority of the square footage dedicated to retail today is not populated by people working on commissions.  I wish they were because the waste of real estate would be less, the service would be better, and the prices would be more competitive.  You give a staff carte blanche to beat online prices, but they still get their cut...I'm all for that.  20% of a sale that's 25% off is better than 30% of a sale that didn't happen because the guy left to go shop at home. . I'd shop at the store every week.  

But paying your people an hourly wage and just hoping your once "great-foot-traffic" location will carry the day?  Nope.  Sorry.  You're both dying dinosaurs and need to re-tune for the 21st century.  

Now car dealerships.  There's a guy who I can't feel sorry for.  I need to go and test drive the car.  You can online comparison shop all you want but you gotta be able to just be inside the car for several minutes and then drive it on surface streets and highways.  But the actual people at the dealership, they're a complete nuisance serving zero purpose except making the car more expensive.  I have to pay $500 more for my car because you guys thought you needed 20 acres to store 1,000 cars in a major city center?  Dah fuh?  Oh yeah, I forgot somebody has to explain to me the satellite radio package and upsell me on an extended warranty.  Thank god those guys are there.  

[Gene Parmesan 4002]

6 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Gotcha.  I agree about bleeding time from folks on commissions.  I thought the previous post was just people who go into stores to just try on clothes and shit.  and then go home and order them.  But yes, as someone who worked a cuople jobs on commission, the time waste is the worst.  But I have no issue with somebody who goes into Banana Republic to try on pants, gets some help from a floor associate, and goes home to order them cheaper from some online discount center.  Yeah, going into a local furniture store and spending a half day planning a room with their team and then going home and getting it somewhere slightly cheaper, yeah---that's a shitty move.  

To me they are both shitty the latter being really shitty and the former being only somewhat shitty.  Obviously the magnitude of the transaction is a major factor.  Regardless of your use of a salesperson's time, it still costs someone real dollars to have those pants on display for you to try on.  Which you've determined is a necessary step before purchasing.

[Guest Lobo]

Agreed.  Then let’s expedite the inevitable.  Let’s quit building retail that’ll be functionally obsolescent in less than a decade.  The blight we are gonna be left with is going to be maddening.  How many ACC campuses do we need?   
 

 

[tokamak 6391]

My wife orders tons of shit on Amazon. I always get a kick out of the Engrish on the packaging of all that Chinese garbage. Even Walmart would be embarrassed to sell some of that shit.

I've also noticed that they've gotten wasteful as hell in their quest to get everything to your door as fast as possible. She recently ordered two pairs of swim goggles for our kids. Exact same goggles, just different colors. Came in two different boxes. We routinely have orders of like 4 items that show up in 3 different boxes spread out over a couple days.

That said, I find going to Walmart to be a deeply unpleasant experience. The one closest to me is a disaster. Not a single employee in there gives a fuck and it's impossible to find anything. Target is a lot better.

Brick & mortar places need to get their shit together on store pick-up if they're going to survive. Ordering a few things and grabbing them on my way home in theory is a great idea, but the implementation is often really, really shitty. Lowe's is the absolute worst. Why the fuck would I want to wait 20 minutes to pick stuff up? At that point I might as well just walk around the store and grab it myself.

[Mappable 37]

I'm still waiting for Highland Mall to get their shit together.  I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen.