Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Shuttering at a Record Pace

[OGIS]

Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Shuttering at a Record Pace

Years of overbuilding and the rise of online shopping have come to a head; malls as ‘energy suckers’

American retailers are closing stores at a record pace this year as they feel the fallout from decades of overbuilding and the rise of online shopping.

Just this past week, women’s apparel chain Bebe Stores Inc. said it would close its remaining 170 shops and sell only online, while teen retailer Rue21 Inc. announced plans to close about 400 of its 1,100 locations.

“There is no reason to believe that this will abate at any point in the foreseeable future,” said Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies for Columbia Business School and a former executive at Sears Canada Inc. and other department stores.

Through April 6, closings have been announced for 2,880 retail locations this year, including hundreds of....

https://www.wsj.com/articles/brick-a...ace-1492818818

I guess all these retail sales clerks can get jobs as warehouse employees at online distribution centers. Oh, wait, they have robots for that. Ok, they can drive all the delivery vans for the online distribution centers. Oh, wait, they will soon have drones and robot trucks for that. Oh, wait, I know! They can survive on their yuge savings accounts while they go back to school and learn programming and computer repair!

Top 2 U.S. Jobs by Number Employed: Salespersons and Cashiers

In its annual report on wages and occupational employment, the BLS found that 4.6 million Americans worked in retail sales while 3.4 million more worked as cashiers, making up almost six percent of total U.S. employment.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...s-and-cashiers

That's a lot of computer repair people. All that beautiful money wasted on wages! Some bright lad will have to think up a repair robot to replace them.

[MisterVeritis]

It is a personal problem. If you want to have a better job get better skills. Stop whining.

[OGIS]

It is a personal problem. If you want to have a better job get better skills. Stop whining.

Please tell the forum how an unemployed minimum wage retail clerk is supposed to do that. Colleges cost money. If Republicans have their way and starve public education it will cost even more. Should they: hit up their parents? Rob a bank? Go on welfare?

You people are like the sadist-rapist who holds down the struggling victim and keeps saying "Stop hitting yourself!"

[MisterVeritis]

Please tell the forum how an unemployed minimum wage retail clerk is supposed to do that. Colleges cost money. If Republicans have their way and starve public education it will cost even more. Should they: hit up their parents? Rob a bank? Go on welfare?

You people are like the sadist-rapist who holds down the struggling victim and keeps saying "Stop hitting yourself!"

It is not my problem to solve. It is a personal problem. If you want to earn more be worth more. Stop whining. You are boring me.

[DGUtley]

Please tell the forum how an unemployed minimum wage retail clerk is supposed to do that. Colleges cost money. If Republicans have their way and starve public education it will cost even more. Should they: hit up their parents? Rob a bank? Go on welfare? You people are like the sadist-rapist who holds down the struggling victim and keeps saying "Stop hitting yourself!"

How is this a Republican issue? How is this a college issue? I represent 16 different contractors. Not one of them can get enough workers. Not one. Not a single one. The trades need people. They can't find them and when they do they struggle to get them through the drug test. When the do, they get great jobs with good benefits. My brother runs a car dealership. Same problem on his end. They can't get people to work.

Where I sit, it's largely a result of a lack of desire and drive rather than Republicans-hate-everybody. Sure, though, keep up that boogeyman theory. That'll help you in 2018.

[Standing Wolf]

After the last couple of times I went to the pool supply store trying to find a part and was told they could order it for me and it would take two weeks, and I ended up going online and getting it in three days for less money, I've stopped going to the pool supply store. Except for books purchased at author signings, to support the store sponsoring the event, it's Amazon or ABE, often for a huge discount. The only thing my wife ever goes to the store for is food - everything else, from shoes and clothes to birdseed and drugs and vitamins for the animals, comes in a box on the porch. It's been years since I set foot in a mall, and standalone stores seem to come and go around here faster than one can easily keep track. Online shopping has change virtually everything. Even large thrift store organizations, like Goodwill and the Salvation Army, have taken to selling on eBay.

[Common]

Its going to get much much worse, more stores will shutter, Sears, JcPenny and Kmart is on the brink and robots are coming in force. Its going to get very ugly for american workers.

Thats why its so very important to stop ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

[OGIS]

It is not my problem to solve. It is a personal problem. If you want to earn more be worth more. Stop whining. You are boring me.

Tiny_violins.jpg. Well, son, there's a real easy and OBVIOUS answer for that problem: put me on ignore and don't pollute my threads with your antimatter-wisdom.

[DGUtley]

We are moving our offices b/c our two year old firm has outgrown our space. I bought a desk on eBay and learned that the company was in Cleveland. Drove up to his warehouse last Saturday and furnished most of the office with the same brand furniture used that my old firm bought (and we got in the divorce from our 93 year old firm) for 10 times the cost. Yes, it's used but they re-do it and once it hits my door it's used anyways. The Internet.

[FindersKeepers]

Please tell the forum how an unemployed minimum wage retail clerk is supposed to do that. Colleges cost money. If Republicans have their way and starve public education it will cost even more. Should they: hit up their parents? Rob a bank? Go on welfare?

You people are like the sadist-rapist who holds down the struggling victim and keeps saying "Stop hitting yourself!"

It's hard to stop progress. Online shopping is replacing brick and mortar stores. That's just a fact. I'm sure blacksmiths felt similar when Henry Ford started flooding the streets with Model A's.

People have to shift as the times shift or they fall behind. We're entering a new phase in retail marketing. I order a LOT online. Because, it's so easy.

I don't know what the answer is, but the job market will have to change to accommodate progress.

A lot of my friends from Colorado are very upset about the cutting back on coal mining. It's their life-blood. It's what's supported their towns for decades. Now, alternative energy sources are increasing and starting to squeeze coal out. They, too, worry.

But, the world keeps turning and we must all learn to be flexible -- or perish.