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Title: It’s A Retail Apocalypse: Sears, Macy’s And The Limited Are All Closing Stores
Source:
The Economic Collapse
URL Source: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/ ... limited-are-all-closing-stores
Published: Jan 9, 2017
Author: Michael Snyder
Post Date: 2017-01-09 00:11:27 by U don't know me
Keywords: None
Views: 3732
Comments: 17
It’s A Retail Apocalypse: Sears, Macy’s And The Limited Are All Closing Stores By Michael Snyder, on January 8th, 2017 It has only been two weeks since Christmas, and already we are witnessing a stunning bloodbath of store closings. Macy’s shocked the retail industry by announcing that they will be closing about 100 stores. The downward spiral of Sears hit another landmark when it was announced that another 150 Sears and Kmart stores would be shutting down. And we have just learned that The Limited is immediately closing all stores nationwide. If the U.S. economy is doing just fine, then why are we experiencing such a retail apocalypse? All over America, vast shopping malls that were once buzzing with eager consumers now resemble mausoleums. We have never seen anything quite like this in our entire history, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next. Not too long ago I walked into a Macy’s, and it was eerily quiet. I stumbled around the men’s department looking for something to buy, but I was deeply disappointed in what was being offered. After some time had passed, an employee finally noticed me and came over to help, but they didn’t have anything that I was looking for. And it is a sad thing, because over the past several years when I have gone into Macy’s looking to spend money, most of the time I have come out of there without spending a penny. Macy’s has made some very bad decisions recently, and I am hoping that they can still turn things around. But for the moment, they are closing stores and cutting jobs. The following comes from the New York Times… Struggling with sagging sales over another crucial holiday shopping season, Macy’s announced on Wednesday that it was eliminating more than 10,000 jobs as part of a continuing plan to cut costs and close 100 stores. Macy’s, the country’s largest department store chain, said sales at its stores had fallen 2.1 percent in November and December compared with the same period in 2015. Terry J. Lundgren, the company’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement that while the trend was “consistent with the lower end of our guidance, we had anticipated sales would be stronger.” Another legendary retailer that really does not have any hope left is Sears. Every year they just keep closing even more stores, and because they are losing so much money they don’t have anything to invest in the stores that remain. As a result, the state of many Sears locations is downright embarrassing at this point… But the retailer, famous for selling everything from shoes to vacuum cleaners to whole houses, is facing its biggest crisis ever. It’s closing hundreds of stores. Others are in shambles, with leaking ceilings and broken escalators. In some, employees hang bedsheets to shield shoppers from sections that stand empty. Since the early portion of 2013, sales are down an astounding 37 percent for the company. Sears is currently more than 1.6 billion dollars in debt, and they are losing more than a billion dollars a year. They keep closing stores in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, but it hasn’t worked. In 2010, Sears had 3,555 stores. Last year, Sears had 1,503 stores, and now a whole bunch more are being shut down. But everyone can see where this is going. As I have stated repeatedly, Sears is going to zero, and many of the experts completely agree with me… “They are going out of business,” said Van Conway, an expert in bankruptcy and debt restructuring and CEO of Van Conway & Partners. “This snowball is 90% of the way to the bottom of the hill.” Of course Sears is still surviving for the moment, and that is more than can be said for The Limited. Back in the old days, it seemed like every mall had one of their stores. I remember passing it on my way to Orange Julius and Herman’s World of Sporting Goods. But now they are shutting down every single location and will be online only… American malls just got emptier. The Limited, a once-popular women’s clothing brand that offers casual attire and workwear, no longer has any storefronts. On Saturday, a message on the store’s website read, “We’re sad to say that all The Limited stores nationwide have officially closed their doors. But this isn’t goodbye.” The website will still be up and running and will continue to ship nationwide, the company said. In addition to Macy’s, Sears and The Limited, other huge names in the retail industry have also fallen on hard times and have had to shut stores over the past 12 months. The following comes from the Washington Post… The retail environment has proved challenging for a variety of stores: Sports Authority went out of business in 2016, shuttering more than 460 locations in U.S. malls and strip malls. PacSun, Aeropostale and American Apparel each have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past year and are aiming to reorganize and revive their businesses. So why is this happening? Without a doubt, our shopping habits have changed. And in the online world, many of these retailers are being absolutely crushed by competition from Amazon and other tech companies that developed online infrastructure before they did. I know that my wife and I actually prefer to shop online for many things when possible, and I anticipate that the share of retailing done online will only continue to grow in this country. But let us also not underestimate the impact that the stagnating economy is having on ordinary consumers. Thanks to the last eight years, approximately two-thirds of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. More than a third of all Americans have a debt that is at least 180 days past due, and the rate of homeownership has been hovering near the lowest level that we have seen in about 50 years. As you read this article, more than 95 million Americans are not in the labor force, and that number has grown by 18 percent under Barack Obama. Homelessness in New York City and other major cities is at a record high, and as a nation we have accumulated the largest mountain of debt in the history of the world. Let us hope that things can be turned around, but if current trends continue the retail apocalypse is just going to go from bad to worse, and we will continue to see lots of headlines about more stores closing down.
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#1. To: All (#0)
Because there are not enough good jobs in this country to support consumers. I didn't think this would last this long. We have been going down hill since the late 80's and especially since Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Good bye America. I do not go to church every time the doors are opened, but I love Jesus Christ. I am only human and fail Him daily. I believe Jesus is the Son of God, was born of a virgin, was crucified on a cross, died for my sins and rose from the dead and that He loves us dearly, and is faithful to forgive us of our sins. But He says that if you deny me in front of your friends I will deny you in front of my Father. Can I get an Amen!
Yes ! In spite of the people that made fun of him, Perot was right. And what he said was common sense, that the globalists wanted everyone to ignore. The globalists should all be made into wind chimes! Si vis pacem, para bellum Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."Theodore Roosevelt-1907. I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
you talk about this as if it were something new, old companies can't adapt and they disappear
These are middle class stores. When the middle class shrinks precipitously, the stores that cater to them go out of business. Trouble is, there are not nearly enough upper class people to support upper class stores of the same size and employment. Lower class stores make little profit and provide crappy jobs. The employees at middle class stores are middle class. They employees of lower class stores are lower class. Essentially, the drive to ever-cheaper labor by offshoring jobs and hiring illegals, with no government intervention through tarriffs or prosecutions, has been the fundamental factor in the destruction of the middle class. Henry Ford understood the need to pay his workers enough so that they could buy his cars, transforming the automobile from a rich man's sport to a universal. Few businessmen have his vision. Which is why the government has to step in with border enforcement and tariffs to save domestic industry.
You have to remove the idea of class as if a person above a certain status would never set foot in Walmart. I have to admit I don't like Kmart and I hated Masters but it doesn't mean everything they sell is rubbish. I was brought up to shop in high class stores, visiting them with my mother long before I understood there might be alternatives but that doesn't mean I still go out of my way to visit them. The point is, people have a certain amount of money and they are used to everyday things lasting a certain time, so some goods can fill a need without a premium price and the internet exploits this successfully, thus the demise of the big store
Few businessmen have his vision. Ford had his wits together. Modern CEOs don't.
You missed the point. The middle class go to Tiffany's and Hermes too, mostly to look, perhaps to buy something small. But they don't keep those places open. And those places stay open, even though they are fabulously overpriced, because there are quite a few truly rich people who are willing to pay up for their wares. Of course the rich need their Special-K and toilet paper too, and they go to WalMart. But there are not enough rich people to keep Walmart or K-Mart, Sears or Kohl's open. Those stores, with hundreds of outlets nationally, are dependent for their survival on the broad back of the American middle class, who have the numbers and the income to keep those stores alive. When the middle class shrinks, because of immigration and labor policy, the shopping infrastructure that caters to the middle class shrinks, and that in turn shrinks the middle class further. When you put the textile industry out of business because socks can be made cheaper in China, you put millions of people out of work. Those millions of people were middle class, but they fall into the underclass because the income and benefits of industrial jobs are not replaced by the lower income and lower security and benefits of service jobs. Net net, Americans get poorer, and they can't buy as much at the stores - which puts the stores out of business. It's a vicious circle. We elected Trump to break the circle. And he will.
Which vicious circle do you refer to? the electoral circle in which you see both sides and all classes savage each other? retail industry is very subject to confidence and falling retail sales are an indicator of confidence so what are in now is a period of structural adjustment. You can't live on past glories so all those displaced workers must retrain, and find a place in new industries. We long ago saw our textile industries go to china, bangladesh and india so our workers had to retrain, they couldn't sit around lamenting that china took their middle class jobs
China could only take those middle class jobs because we refused to erect proper tariffs to protect against dumping and currency manipulation.
You mean to say you couldn't find a nice little sweat shop somewhere for all those illegal immigrants or create some in Mexico, you had to let the jobs go to China. I guess NAFTA didn't work afterall and you got hoisted on your own pitard
Petard. I myself didn't: I voted for Ross Perot. I heard the "Giant Sucking Sound" of jobs going to Mexico back when Perot did, and I strenuously opposed unfettered free trade with Japan in the late 1970s when it was destroying Detroit. I was at the front lines of these labor issues: I grew up in a house where both parents worked for the unemployment agency, along with an aunt, and where my grandfather was one of the founding managers. I have understood labor matters, particularly industrial labor challenges and unemployment drivers and cycles, since I was old enough to understand political and economic discussions at the dinner table. When I was 12, my mother, overloaded at work, would bring home boxes of unemployment claims and have me help her process them on the dinner table at home (this was long before the age of computerization). I have a tremendous amount of practical knowledge of labor drivers and unemployment, and I have always been concerned about labor issues and unemployment, at a very personal level. What Perot said was true. That's why I supported him. What Trump said is what the Midwest needs, and they know it. That's why he was elected President.
So did I. Perot was the only man available giving the future any thought.
And the future arrived as it does so often. Non auro, sed ferro, recuperando est patria
Yep. We've had 30 years more decay, and this time the Midwest, which used to be the foundry of the world, voted to stop letting itself be neglected to dust while traders and financiers made money on the coasts. Trump gets the trade issue. Nobody has talked so clearly about it since Perot. But 30 years on, Trump WON. The country was not ready for Perot until 2016.
you guys love to live in past glories, but reality is you failed to adapt. I was brought up in a coal and steel town even worked in the steel works but that is a shadow of what it once was today. I'm not quoting politicians who have faded into history even though there are a few who should have been lynched, but these problems arn't local, they are world wide and we have the multinationals to thank. You drank the koolaid
So why is this happening?
#2. To: U don't know me (#1)
(Edited)
Because there are not enough good jobs in this country to support consumers. I didn't think this would last this long. We have been going down hill since the late 80's and especially since Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Good bye America.
People should have paid more attention to Ross Perot's lectures on economics on TV!
#3. To: U don't know me (#0)
#4. To: rlk (#2)
" People should have paid more attention to Ross Perot's lectures on economics on TV! "
#5. To: U don't know me (#0)
#6. To: U don't know me (#0)
#7. To: Vicomte13 (#6)
#8. To: Vicomte13 (#6)
Henry Ford understood the need to pay his workers enough so that they could buy his cars, transforming the automobile from a rich man's sport to a universal.
#9. To: paraclete (#7)
You have to remove the idea of class as if a person above a certain status would never set foot in Walmart.
#10. To: Vicomte13 (#9)
It's a vicious circle.
#11. To: paraclete (#10)
#12. To: Vicomte13 (#11)
China could only take those middle class jobs because we refused to erect proper tariffs to protect against dumping and currency manipulation.
#13. To: paraclete (#12)
You mean to say you couldn't find a nice little sweat shop somewhere for all those illegal immigrants or create some in Mexico, you had to let the jobs go to China. I guess NAFTA didn't work afterall and you got hoisted on your own pitard
#14. To: Vicomte13 (#13)
I myself didn't: I voted for Ross Perot. I heard the "Giant Sucking Sound" of jobs going to Mexico back when Perot did...
#15. To: rlk (#14)
So did I. Perot was the only man available giving the future any thought.
#16. To: rlk (#14)
So did I. Perot was the only man available giving the future any thought.
#17. To: Vicomte13 (#16)
the Midwest, which used to be the foundry of the world,
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