Wonkette
Ever go to a quaint marketplace in Mexico or Morocco or maybe some flea market in a sports arena parking lot on Sunday morning and haggle over the myriad gewgaws? That is what shopping in America will be like, next year! Or maybe right now. With 148,000 retail store closures in 2008 and another 73,000 predicted for the first few months of 2009, some 20% of all American shops will be gone. And the ones that remain will basically give you whatever you want for whatever coins in your purse.
“The whole pricing system is becoming an old-fashioned bazaar,” [consumer strategist Richard] Hastings said today in a telephone interview. “They’re going into the stores and they’re looking at the stuff and they’re saying ‘You know what? I know that that price is way too high,’ and they have figured out that the signage doesn’t mean that much.”
Barack Obama can build America’s new infrastructure out of abandoned store fixtures!
Holiday Sales Drop To Force Bankruptcies, Closures [Bloomberg]
We are all Arab street merchants,,,,holy crap 20% of all stores closing, whoa daddy
Oh, God. I hope Indie shoots me next.
Again, these CEOs see the train coming and refuse to get out of the way. And yet, they somehow walk away not only with their money…but with their reputations in the clique of CEOs intact so that they will get another chance to run yet another company into the ground.
THAT is AMERICAN all the way.
Just to prove Condi is doing the drugs http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/28/rice.administration/index.html
AfghanVet:
It’s good to be KING!
This explains why that bathroom in Minneapolis went out of business.
finallyhappy: Yep. And she scored most of them from Laura’s medicine cabinet.
Are online retailers closing, too? Because, being afraid to leave my house, I buy everything online. And I NEVER pay sales tax (unless the store is in-state.) I am a FUCKING REBEL!
Somehow I don’t think this means I’ll be able to get a new Gen 2 ipod touch for under $200. Maybe a Zume though…
I trade two camel and pile of dung for the flat screen plasma TeeVee, plis.
As long as my local bottle shop is flush, the rest can fail. I bought everything already, like the rest of you patriots.
Ah, this is paradise. 148,000 Hobo hotels just waiting for us to move in. I love this country, except for the poverty, debt, erosion of civil rights and our unfortunate tendency to kill large numbers of foreigners for no discernible reason.
But what will we eat as we lounge about the recently closed “Bed and Baths”?
Wonkette points to the new growth industry with this piece.
http://wonkette.com/405173/another-republican-politician-caught-trying-to-screw-children
Apparently, you can get a Republican to come to your house with money (as well as a collection of sex toys) if you just pretend to be an 11 year old boy.
O happy day!
ManchuCandidate: Sofa King! Awesome!
Oh yeah, that’s obviously the problem with overpriced generic retail chains, I’m not haggling enough with the teenager or retail lifer who’s making 7$ an hour.
Hooray for Amazon, may the chains (oh please please PLEEEEASE Wal-Mart) try this strategy fail and maybe some entrepreneurs succeed in the coming future.
Considering that there was over 20 sq ft of retail space per person in this country, this retail cleansing is waaaay overdue. Good riddance, malls of America!
Maus:
Now is the time for the entrepreneurs to step forward.
The deck is re-shuffled - and there is plenty of money to be made!
I’ve got $20 that says the Banana Republic sales staff remains snooty.
dijetlo: I think this Republican was trying to screw 11 and 12 year old sisters although young boys generally are better bait for Republicans.
Servo:Finally, back to small neighborhood stores that don’t make you feel like a rat in a maze.
Actually, 20% of all shops is really just thinning the herd, I mean, how many Yankee Candle Shoppes do we need anyhoo?
Servo: Yeah, and it’s not just the big chains. I work in a little town’s “revitalized” downtown core, and half the idiot shops that open here make me roll my eyes and guess the future time of death. How many bead-craft-scrapbooking-tiny-boutique-clothingstore-’adult’-boutiques-etc do these “entrepreneurs” think one small half-dead former logging town can support?
Mild Midwesterner: I once actually asked J. Crew staff if they were supposed to act rudely to customers. And then I left.
freakishlystrong: Ha! What you said, only slower.
Mild Midwesterner: I’ll give you that 20 if the next time you’re in Banana, you remind them that they’re nothing more than glorified Old Navy employees whose snotty attitude is directly proportional to the amount of black they wear.
Lascauxcaveman: Two words: NAIL SALONS.
I want that twat who spit in my mall burrito while he was making it to be fired. How can I make that happen?
Please let the malls die from the city perimeters in towards the centers. With nothing to buy and gas for the Expedition @ $4/gal, the suburbillies will have to move back to place from which they can at least see bums and people of color, even if they still don’t care about them. Then we can work on getting them used to the idea of (the horror!) paying to park.
springfield_meltdown: Or a Zima!
See if we hadn’t passed Prop 8 the gay wedding business industry could have sustained us permanently. But no, all you Mormon fundies wanted to drive us deeper into recession. Damn Luddites.
MoodProcessor: Many of these stores can be turned into walk-in ATMS, where you stick your arm into a machine that takes a pint of your plasma, spits out a bunch of $20s and asks if you want stamps.
We’ll know when the bottom is near when the Abercrombie & Fitch anchor on Fifth Ave. here in NYC, no longer sends bare-chested hunks outside to man the ropeline of goggle-eyed tourists. I can’t wait.
Next thing you know we’ll be minding our own business, get blamed for something we didn’t do, and America will invade us!
On the upside, the rich folk will build crazy fucking buildings just to show off.
Hey, maybe this means that backwater I call my home state will be willing to consider something other than the state sales tax to fund essential services.
Or not.
MoodProcessor: dijetlo: You just have to have enough sense to peddle the ass God gave you.
New avatar: Steinberg cat clawing at cat door
Half price muslin
All this “Economic Crisis” is going to do is turn millionaires in to billionaires, and the rest of us in to haggling hobos..FU Dubya and pals, FU…
bitchincamaro: That will happen as soon as the Naked Cowboy hangs up his tighty whities, meaning never.
finallyhappy: C’mon. Weren’t you ever stuck in a nightmare of a job with the most horrible boss in the history of the world, but you knew you couldn’t say anything bad about the SOB because it would make you look disloyal to prospective employers? Although, I must say she’s flirting with appearing delusional here.
All those empty big box stores will provide excellent waste storage facilities for our coal burning power plants. Sludge-Mart?
So, when I go to Hastings this afternoon to purchase Economics for Dummies, how much should I offer to pay?
We’re moving to the barrio model: Gun shop -> liquor store -> bail bondsman.
Mild Midwesterner: I once said to the beotch behind the counter, “Hey, this is Minnesota, aren’t you supposed to be NICE?”
I got the big sigh and eye roll.
Haven’t been back since….and I’ve got at least 32 bucks left in the bank account. So take that, snobby losers.
The country has been through this before. Recession and Depression are not unprecedented.
Many industry leading companies (giants now) started out as entrepreneurial ventures during past recession cycles.
The darkness will pass if you keep your eyes fixed on the light at the end of the tunnel.
actor212: Word.
Aurelio: and you’re a judgmental prick who needs to refrain from posting on the internet until he can save up and rent a sense of humor.
Wonkette == Snark.
Live it, love it, embrace it…
Or roll the fuck off.
…if all the malls are closed then where will we hide during the zombie apocalypse?!
dijetlo: Did I miss something? I thought Aurelio’s comment was pretty funny.
Slightly o/t, but here’s a new KKK to put the hate on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28wamu.html?pagewanted=1
Say what you want about the NYT, but I think this “Reckoning” series is better late than never.
two things are going to happen:
1. retailers like amazon will show continued growth
2. neighborhood based retail/service centers will become in vogue
Min:
“You just have to have enough sense to peddle the ass God gave you.”
I don’t know, maybe I just caught it wrong, perhaps he’s trying to be funny and I missed it, wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.
In which case, I was joking too.
Otherwise screw that guy.
hobospacejungle: Nope - Amazon sales are up 17% this year. It’s a good time to be a recluse.
AngryBlakGuy: A hobo shack where you can only reach the top floor with a ladder, so you can kick it over, thus preventing the zombies from climbing up it. I know, the Zombie Survival Handbook told me so.
bitchincamaro: Wow. Just… wow. And then there’s this gem, right at the end: “In June, Mr. Au sent an e-mail message to the company asking executives to return some of their pay. He says he has not heard back.” I would laugh, but it hurts too much.
Yeehaw! Mission accomplished. Republicans made the US into Tatooine, and we’re down to haggling for droids and scrap metal. “But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”
…?..its starwars marathon week at my place.
I blame furries.
freakishlystrong:
As if they hadn’t planned it all along.
Lascauxcaveman: Don’t forget the herb, ointment and froo-froo soap holes-in-the-wall and the innumerable latte/chai shops, all staffed by 20-something Art History majors whose one marketable skill in life is the ability to make steamed milk.
Oh yeah, and the most egregious: the formica surfaced restaurants that specialize in 10 dollar variations of the peanut & jelly sammich. Welcome to Chapter 7, fuckers.
Chanel just laid off 20% of its production workforce. We are going to see check cashing stores on Rodeo Drive before this baby turns around.
Mild Midwesterner: Retail clerks have NO reason to act that way - I think of Edwina on Absolutely Fabulous when exiting an art gallery - her parting comment to the clerk was “You only work in a shop, you know. You can drop the attitude.” Anyway I’ve always been a bit of a fashion snob (champagne tastes, beer budget and all that), I “window shop” on some upscale sites from time to time and even Saks is having ridiculous sales now. Also overstock.com is starting to get alot of good stuff - although you have to know where to find it, ’cause some of the items are (like Clergerie shoes *drool*) only found by doing a search, the designers aren’t listed on the site…..now if only I had money to buy stuff
Scandalabra: Holy tomatoes……..
windupbird: “Holy tomatoes”…That phrase is going straight into my personal lexicon.
AngryBlakGuy: cruise ships.
not like anyone’s gonna be on them anyway, and besides,
there has to be a sequel.
AngryBlakGuy:
Monroeville Mall. The most hated place in Pittsburgh. In the years since it’s construction, every imaginable big box store, quik-krap, and jiffy-shit was clawing for the prime real-estate surrounding the mall, with almost no change in road capacity, and countless added traffic lights. Motherfuckers! During the Christmas shopping season, I was able to cover the two mile distance faster by foot than in a car. Many residents in the area would likely celebrate if, say, a fuel-ladened Boeing 747 fell on it.
I remember watching them film that movie from my street. What a cluster-fuck.
How about The Domain in Austin? Fuckers took a massive piece of land between Burnet Road and the MoPAC Expressway to build an enclave for shopping addicts: your favorite big-box store is actually in your neighborhood. I’m sure those expensive lofts are going to remain vacant for a while especially after the retailers go bust.
For me it’s actually irrelevant because I don’t shop (I own very little outside of what fits in my suitcase and I only replace the shit I need when it breaks… like every ten years) but the City of Austin gave The Domain lots of tax breaks and benefits and now, once its main purpose it’s gone, they’re probably just skip town the same way Intel did a few years ago leaving an unfinished building downtown.
kudzu: Texas is insulated from this downturn. Read the papers, man! Dontcha know? With an energy industry and a diversified economy, we won’t be on the hobo beans until 2010 or so. Party down at that faux BBQ place in the Domain (make sure to remove your foil hat first).
“We’ll be going from a Dickens-esque worst of times this December to the best of times in future Decembers because we’ll rationalize out all the redundant retailers and retail space in shopping centers,” Flickinger said.
I can’t add any irony to that.
I went out shopping for half-off Christmas decorations today, and did some browsing before I bought. Every storeowner I returned to thanked me for coming back. It got kinda freaky after awhile.
“>>Talbots Inc.<< and Sears Holdings Corp. are among chains shuttering underperforming locations.’ If Peggington’s local Talbot’s and Brooks Brothers close, that just might make her reconsider her recent comments about the economy being just swell…….http://wonkette.com/404641/peggy-noonan-is-thankful-that-she-doesnt-have-to-encounter-poor-people
I remember when Sears and K-Mart had small cafeterias in them. Jeebus, I’m getting old.
If they’d just leave the furniture when Sears shuts down, a couple hundred of us future homeless could just move on in: fully furnished apts…and we’d do a better job selling the other crap than the rudeass clerks there now!
Servo: …down here in Miami K-Marts still have cafeterias!
Servo: Oh, Hell, I remember when Lord and Taylor had the Birdcage, Wanamakers had a fancy restaurant and Garfinckels had a tearoom- and Peoples Drug Stores(which became CVS here in DC) had lunch counters. I also remember when the first McDonald’s opened in Philadelphia- before that the fast food was Gino’s(Gino Marchetti- it had burgers and fries) in Olney- not to be confused with the Cheesesteak place that vies with Pat’s in South Philly.