Retail apocalypse 75,000 more store closures

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  • karlac

    Lately too damn busy to have Gone fishin' ...
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    Your Grandma looks about as stern as mine was. LoL

    She was sweet as could be to her grandchildren. One of the daughters of a plantation owner, she preferred French (18th century court French) to English, especially on the phone.

    About 40 years back, was driving from Houston to New Orleans on business, and in a bit of a hurry had ignored the turnoff to Lafayette, but got to thinking how I hadn't seen them in awhile, and how foolish it would be to miss the opportunity.

    Just in time (and not for the last time that day) managed to make the last turn-around before the I-10 bridge over the Atchafalaya swamp and went back for a visit, was just after lunch.

    We had a cup of her famous coffee, made in a small coffee pot sitting in a sauce pan full of boiling water, which she spooned into the drip "sock", and then served in a tiny demitasse cup.

    We visited for an hour, said our goodbye's and I resumed the journey to New Orleans.

    Late that night, the phone rang in my hotel room in NOLA telling me that she had passed away from a stroke a few hours after our visit.

    Gotta listen to those voices telling you to do what's right.

    And, have not had a better cup of coffee since.
    Military Camp
     

    A & P

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    I'd say I'll try to be brief, but we know that won't happen.

    The sky IS falling. This is the unintended consequences of online stores. I used to complain about it but it does no good. Now I'm trying to adapt to survive. Embrace the inevitable. When someone comes in and says "I want to buy local...now, if you can just match this price out the door from Buds (tax included), I'd be happy to buy from you," what they really mean is "I'm only buying the gun from you because they can't ship straight to my house, but I want the online price with the local level of service and support."

    A customer recently came in and said "I would prefer to buy it from you." I said, "I'll even beat the online price!" He says, "Well, you still have to make money. Even if you just make 20 or 30% I'm okay with that." I paused, "That'd be great! At my normal price I only make 10-12% and you'll pay with a rewards card so that's down to 7-9%. If I give you the deal I was offering, I make about 4%, but you do a lot of business with me and 4% (on a $1200 gun) is still more than the $25 transfer I'd make." "How can you survive on 4%??" "Well, I can't, but I can survive on 4% better than the transfer fee and I'm not inventorying the gun so there's no upfront cost to me. Paperwork is the same both ways. And the online guy was probably just going to drop ship it to me anyway."

    I could cry about how we only make 7-10% net fees on a new gun, but a buyer doesn't care. If the LGS goes out of business trying to compete online, the local buyer will just find some guy working out of his house to do the transfers. People used to protest Walmart for coming in a city because it was going to run out the mom-n-pops. But then they open anyway and the whole town shops there. The M&P closes down. Oh well.

    So the internet will eventually run most local stores out of business. However, instead of crying about it, we LGSs and other stores just have to close before we run into debt, or change our focus. It'd be nice if we all customarily charged $100 for transfers. Just like realtors charging 6%. It's not a law, just a custom. And since we're not making it on sales, we should make it on the only thing we have left uniquely ours. But then a store would charge $90, then $80, then $15 with an LTC... So we have to find something that online cannot do, or do well. We delivery hay and alfalfa with our other company. Amazon will never be able to do that. Our friends own a restaurant. We can't eat fresh food online. My wife is a hairstylist. You can't get a good haircut online. I sell silencers (one of the top three Silencer Shop dealers in the Houston area). It's not practical to buy them online after transfer and paperwork fees with the LGS...generally speaking. Gunsmithing, cerakoting, training, custom builds, ... these are more appropriate locally. But selling common production guns just can't be done efficiently locally. Ref: Gander Mtn.

    Also, when this internet sales tax thing takes full effect, the LGSs and other B&M will have a fighting chance. If you beat me on service or selection, that's just business. But for the government to pick winners by making me charge tax and online guys like OP or Buds or Midway not charging isn't "fair and free markets". Realize that if I have a 12% gross margin and I have to eat sales tax and OP doesn't, and we both eat a 3% credit card fee, I make 1.5% margin while they net 9%. Of course they'll beat me. They make 6x what I make on every sale! They can use that to offer free shipping, free return shipping, sponsor pages, host events, etc. Sales tax inequity is a huge disadvantage.

    One poster in another thread said "well, B&Ms should just sell online like the other guys." Because that worked so well for other industries. Online consolidates into just a few companies. In 1990, every kid with an IQ over 100 was building computers in their apartments and selling like crazy. Then Michael Dell did it better and it became pointless (unless it was a custom gaming rig). So you cannot take 20,000 B&Ms and have 20,000 online gun or optics stores. It won't work. It consolidates down into a few winners. No M&P will compete with Amazon unless it's an artisan store selling their own unique items. Remember the days of the video store? Who here worked in a video store in college? Blockbuster largely ran off the independent stores. Now there's just Netflix and Redbox basically. I bet there were 10,000 video store that employed 100,000 people back when I was in college. Maybe more. And they didn't even produce movies or shows. How many people does Redbox or Netflix employ?

    3 years ago I predicted that in 10 years we'll have one of the worst unemployment crises in history. It was based on the internet. Add to it our influx of illegal immigrants and it makes it worse. But even without them, the internet destroys employment. I like the efficiency of the internet, but when Amazon puts 100 people in a small chain store out of business, they don't hire 100 people to offset the increased demand. If Amazon gets into pharmacy stuff and puts Walgreens out of business, they won't replace the thousands that Walgreens employs.

    The only businesses that can really survive the internet juggernaut are things that require personal interaction (gun training, shooting ranges, hay delivery, eating, personal services, gas stations, transportation). Oh, but wait. Now they have driverless cars. Even truck driving will be automated. Assembly lines are automated. So robots put the line worker out of a job and now internet consolidation will put B&Ms largely out.

    Some of the posters already said they will just buy clothes online and return them for free if they don't fit. I'm sure Victoria Secret is already considering that. Close the expensive real estate in the malls, put the bad attitude mall worker out of a job, reduce your payroll from 2000 sales girls to 50 people in a warehouse packing boxes...and offer free returns. Incidentally, theft will drop to practically zero. Those kinds of stores have HUGE shrinkage.

    Financially, the internet is a miracle. It's amazingly efficient. But it also only requires 1/100th of the manpower once you reach a certain size. Ironically, if we have an unemployment crisis, who will have the money to shop online?

    Finally, just remember when you shop online that if you walk into a store to ask an owner for a donation to support your kids baseball team or buy an FFA project, he can't support you if you don't support him. Ask OP, Walmart, Buds, Midway, etc to buy your daughters overpriced girl scout cookies. Ask them to take out the ad in your son's football team calendar. When the money leaves the community, it's not there to give back, either.

    We can't (and probably shouldn't) change the future of online sales. Just realize there are unintended consequences. The guy who walked in the other day wanting a CZ race gun and said "I can't find anyone with one in stock to hold to see if I like it..." Or the other guy who wanted to hold a Benelli 828U over and under to see how it pointed... Or the guy who wanted to look through a NF scope to see if the clear glass was worth the $2500+ price tag... Exactly.

    On a separate note, call your representatives and tell them "NO RED FLAG GUN GRABS IN TEXAS!"
     

    karlac

    Lately too damn busy to have Gone fishin' ...
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    Lack of electrons flowing through a wire will put online retail out of business faster than you can say "plug me in".
     

    Moonpie

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    Gunz are icky.
    My main beef with the LGS is(and always has been) they can not get the gun(s) I want.
    Many times I would see a neat-O gun I wanted I would go to the LGS only to be told We don't even know WTF that thing is much less know where get one.
    Now I am one of those weirdo gun nerds who likes oddball weapons who isn't really concerned over $30-50 difference, I want THAT gun.
    If you can't be bothered to get it for me I will find another way and pay that guy.
    This goes all the way back to the 1970's.
    Here is another recent example: A small M&P gun shop opened here. I tried to give the guy business but he was a joke. His big thing was If We Don't Have It, We Can Order It! He never had shit.
    Well guy, I can order it. And have it in a few days.
    But the real pisser was he would not order your items right away. He would sit on his hands until he built up a large enough order THEN he would "order" it. From the most expensive place on the web.
    Hell, you'd wait WEEKS even months to get something.
    Oh yeah he charged you full retail, SHIPPING, and tax. Now mind you, everybody included in the order paid the "shipping". Fvck that guy.
    He is now closed.
    The internet has been a Godsend for me.
     

    Younggun

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    I shop retail when I can but Moonpie makes the most important point.

    The hobbies I enjoy have a massive variety of products. For the most part a B&M store can’t afford to stock millions worth of inventory when a lot will sit on the shelf waiting for the right buyer.

    With guns, I just ordered buckets online. 750gr .510Cal Amax. Cost about $42 for 20 of them. In store that price jumps to $52 for the simple fact that they will sit in inventory waiting for the few people who want them and can’t be ordered in large enough quantities to have any pricing leverage. Now add in the variety of handguns available and the various calibers of each. Selling at the national level a full inventory makes sense, not at the local level though.


    Same with RC stuff. Hundreds of planes available for just one style of flying or one material. Add in ARFs in foam, plus balsa, plus kits and multiply by manufactures. Now add in all the battery types and sizes multiplied by manufacturer, plus electronics, motors or engines, and various push rods, hinges, covering, etc. you just can’t stock everything. Now add cars, boats, and drones.



    It’s not pricing that puts the large o line stores on top. It’s inventory. Once you have the inventory to sell at the national level you have the volume to bring down prices. But it’s the inventory that sends people to Amazon, Buds, or HorizonHobby.


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    Younggun

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    I have had FunGuns in Waco order for me in the past. They would either hold a small order until they could order enough to eat the shipping or give you a price to order quick.

    Got a good deal on my Armalite though. Cheaper than I’d found online without giving them any price to best.

    Last time I went in I left unhappy with the customer service I got from the new business partner. Ignored for 5 minutes while he BSd with another guy behind the counter and then blown off when I asked about a stock I was looking for. Previously they would have offered to order it and I would have excepted. This guy had no interest.


    So Ordered it from Brownells.


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    45tex

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    Are you 12, 56, 84 or 2001?

    Im gonna go with 56
    As for me, I'm 64 and recently decided to dabble in drones. Bought a couple of cheapies and learned that no tree is safe from my attack. Saving for a better one now. Never too old for toys.
    And yes I know the question was not directed at me.
     

    Dad_Roman

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    As for me, I'm 64 and recently decided to dabble in drones. Bought a couple of cheapies and learned that no tree is safe from my attack. Saving for a better one now. Never too old for toys.
    And yes I know the question was not directed at me.
    Sokay. Im trying to figure out his handle on RCG.
    Have several drones and choppers in the shop for a quick run around the backyard. Planes? Thats a whole nother thang.
    IMG_0027.JPG
     

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    Younggun

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    Are you 12, 56, 84 or 2001?

    Im gonna go with 56

    84.


    Mostly post in the “what did you do today” thread and read a bunch in the others. Especially if I have my eye on something new.

    Didn’t realize there were other young’uns over there.


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    Younggun

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    Sokay. Im trying to figure out his handle on RCG.
    Have several drones and choppers in the shop for a quick run around the backyard. Planes? Thats a whole nother thang.
    View attachment 169504

    Still want to meet up at a field someday. If for no other reason that to drool on your collection.


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    Younggun

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    As for me, I'm 64 and recently decided to dabble in drones. Bought a couple of cheapies and learned that no tree is safe from my attack. Saving for a better one now. Never too old for toys.
    And yes I know the question was not directed at me.

    One of the funnest drones I’ve had cost $30 and was made by Estes. Tiny little thing that I flew around the house.


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    Younggun

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    Shocked me to see 4.



    Someday for sure. If you ever get this way be sure to stop by. Doors always open.

    .

    I go that way fairly often, I just never have time to stop.

    Maybe I’ll just have a short road trip one of these days.


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    Old_Inspector

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    I read some of the nostalgic posts here today. I remember the radio that sat on a cabinet in the kitchen of my parents house. It was a huge Motorola that used vacuum tubes (and took 5 minutes or more to warm up and actually work). My father got our first TV in 1954; it had a 13-inch (diagonally measured) screen and was about 4 feet long. We lived in a small town in western Illinois and could get two channels reliably (a CBS station and an NBC station). Dad wanted more and got a power rotor installed on the outdoor antenna so we could also get a relatively nearby ABC station (about 70 miles away). Dad loved his TV. We were the first people on our street to get a television set (an Admiral, from our local TV store). We got our first color TV in 1963 (i think). 1964 was the first year that NBC produced color TV shows. Before that no one produced anything but B&W.
    I remember full-service gas stations, regular gas at seven gallons for a dollar, real bakery stores that sold real home-made sugar cookies (3 cents each) and chocolate chip cookies (4 cents each) as well as fantastic cinnamon rolls that they called "beehives" (15 cents apiece). I remember buying cigarettes for my mother for 25 cents a pack.
    Like I said, nostalgic stuff.
     

    Old_Inspector

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    As for retail stores, they are changing. One thing is likely to be a smaller stock but with orders possible within two days, that is not really a problem. I used to frequent a local gunstore here but he eventually went out of business about a year and a half ago. I bought at least two guns a year from him so I did my part. I found a local dealer that has a small repair shop as a part-time dealer who does $20.00 transfers (especially for LTCs). I can get it cheaper but I like this guy so it works for me. Besides, it is a relationship thing and the transfer is actually pleasant. Try that with Carter's Country or Academy. I can buy something interesting (like a Savage Model 99 in .250-3000 Savage from a New Hampshire dealer) and have it delivered to him for final transfer. That way, I get interesting things and good conversation at the same time.
    Wal-Mart has changed the stores in most areas. Now, there are more stores around the Wal-Mart that offer items and/or services that Wal-Mart does not or do it better and/or faster. That an a lot more restaurants. Make your own memories and your children and grand-children will remember these times as the "good old days" for them.
     
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