The Death of the American Mall

Last Sunday morning, CBS News ran a story on the dying American mall.  In the story, it made the assumption that the main reason why malls are dying is that people are shopping online.

Seriously?

Are you kidding me?

In my opinion, the real reason for the collapse of the malls is 2 companies:  Walmart and Target.  These 2 companies have dominated the landscape where others once did.

Of course, both of these companies have had their share troubles over the last few years, but both have managed to survive all their problems with little affect for the most part.

Granted these 2 companies killed most all other retailers in the past few years:  Ames, Bradlees, Caldor, Ann & Hope, Woolworth, and many others.  Feel free to add your own dead retailer to the list. 

Certainly many of these stores were standalone stores and not connected to malls, but the trickle down happened where many of the mall stores were affected to the point of closure.  This led to a lot of empty spaces in many malls.

Translation, no stores means no mall.  In fact, the website deadmalls.com is a great resource to read about the past of many of the former malls.  I highly recommend this site for anybody wanting to research the dead past of malls and its associated stores.

So why did CBS make such a stupid oversight? 

The answer is simple:  MONEY.

Both Walmart and Target are both big advertisers with the CBS TV network.  It is almost certain that they did not want to offend their advertisers by blaming them for the decline of the mall.  After all, you would be smart not to bite the hand that feeds you. 

What I found most interesting about the story was the fact that they mentioned the Mall of America.  While this is technically a mall in all regards, it is in reality a tourist destination.  Consider it like a Disneyland with a roof.

I have visited this mall several times over the years and while it does have a wow factor, it has declined significantly over the years as many of the stores have disappeared been replaced with more local stores instead of national chains.  Unfortunately the prices in many of these stores are significantly higher priced than their national counterparts. 

So honestly, I have no intention of returning back to that mall anytime in the near future.  Ironically, when I was out there, many locals say they shop at another mall (smaller and more realistic one) not far away.  I guess the real people in the area know better than the tourists. 

So did CBS do a disservice to the public with this story?  That depends on your perspective.  Ironically, the pictures at the beginning of the video included pictures of both Kinney Shoes and Woolworth, both of which were owned by the Woolworth Company, the same one I worked at for nearly 9 years.

Of course, I really watched this Sunday morning news show for the story on Shakira.

After all, her hips don’t lie.  Unlike that company called Staples.

 

Celebrating 5 Years Later?

It is an amazing thing.

It has now been 5 years since my termination from Staples.

Depending on how you want to look at it, it is either a good thing or socially the worst thing could ever happen.

Yea, I lost a good full time job with full benefits. On the other hand, the company’s stock has plunged to nearly half the value of when I left the company. This would have meant that I might have lost about 50% of my retirement plan if I didn’t leave the company.

Unfortunately over the last 5 years, I have yet to get a new job. Some may say that I am lazy and don’t care. The truth is that Staples has ruined me so bad that I am a toxic employee, even to companies that I could have very easily gotten into.

I still fill out job applications with no success; however resources limit me in how far I can travel for any job possibilities.

Mind you that I have a college degree as well but unfortunately that is about as worthy as nothing as it is over 20 years old. Certainly times have changed since then and going back to school to update myself isn’t even an option now or ever.

So now the best that I can do is continue to punish Staples with this blog and spread my story of just how evil this company really is. For long time readers of this blog, you may have realized that I have been writing more about current events than me lately, but I plan to continue my own story in the weeks and months ahead.

So what is my expected future? Unfortunately, I do expect much than this at the current time. Combining my toxic past with Staples and my current health condition, I don’t expect to get hired anywhere anytime soon. Place the blame where you want, but I blame mostly reluctant companies not willing to hire or even take a chance with me.

On a completely different topic, I have made a serious change to this blog.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have had people comment on a posting from over 9 months ago. One of the comments was rude and promptly deleted; the other I allowed but explained that their comment was explained by comments expressed by others in that same blog.

It all made me wonder if some people are just ignorant or just want to read what they want and just stop there. In both cases, the commenters were wrong, but the rudeness of one is just not acceptable.

This brings me to my point. Any rude comments will be deleted, no questions asked. I also must approve all comments before they are posted as well. I am also closing the period of comments to 30 days. I feel that this is more than adequate time to respond to posts as the much of the information I write about quickly becomes outdated or amended. This is not meant to punish people, but to close the door on old topics without deleting old posts. Note, however, that these changes affect only the WordPress edition of this blog and not the Blogger version of this blog. Blogger doesn’t allow to make the type of changes to limit times on comments so for now, this will remain unchanged.

I really didn’t want to make these changes, but I had enough of moderating old posts that should have been put way behind us.

As always, thank you for your continued support.

Staples’ Turn

It was bound to happen.

It was announced last week that Staples plans on closing up to 225 stores in the next year.

Now let’s realize that they say “up to” which means that it could be significantly less than that, but chances are that it probably will be that number.

After all, being that odd of a number, they just didn’t pull that number out of thin air.

Or did they?

Personally I think this number will be much greater in the long term. The reason is simple: they are obsolete and there is nothing they sell that you can’t find someplace else.

And the new slogan doesn’t work either.

Make more happen. Make more what happen? It just doesn’t make any sense. But then again neither did “That was easy”. What really was “easy”?

Then there was the stupid “What the L?” ad. I say what the L are they talking about? Sadly they were trying to capitalize on Kmart’s “ship my pants” idea. It just doesn’t click at all. What is their point or do they even have one anymore?

It is quite apparent that the company is lost as far as their advertising is concerned. This does not help to bring in the customers at all.

Then there are the print ads. Pick up an ad from 5 years ago and it looks strangely similar to the same type of ad tactics used today. Maybe it is time to make a new approach to advertising.

All this helps create the problem leading up to the store closures.

So now the idea is why are these stores closing? As with RadioShack mentioned previously, Staples is planning on closing underperforming stores. Add to this, they want to close stores whose rent has come due and they wish not to renew in those areas.

Now I can understand all this. But, and it is a big but, in both companies’ cases, what about those overpaid executives?

Many of these companies are so overweight with high-paid executives; it makes Dolly Parton look flat-chested. Obviously, there is no need for so many of these companies especially given that many of those people who really make the company money are losing their jobs.

So while these executives spend their day playing Sugar Farm Bear Crush Casino, others are thrown to the street for no really good reason except that their store was an underperformer.

While no official list of store closings have been announced, I would not be surprised if the store that I was employed at would be on that list. The reasons I believe it would are as follows:

· It is an old store. The plaza it is located in is old and run down. Some of the walls in the store are cracked and the whole building structure never seemed safe to me.

· It is located too close to the airport. It may be convenient to the airport, but when a plane goes overhead, you definitely feel it.

· Too many intersections make it hard to get to. The only way I ever got there was to take the back road. Too much traffic to follow any other way. I always heard this as a major problem.

Overall, with the stock falling to just a little over $11/share, the company should consider getting rid of their far, not just those who actually do the work. But then again, Staples never did take the easy way out.

RadioShack and Sears Sufferings

Another possible hacking victim has been announced and it just so happens that it is Sears. As if this company didn’t need to be hurt anymore it now has been announced that it may have become the latest victim in this ongoing problem.

Of course, the keyword here is MAY be a victim as they are not really sure that they really are or not. Seriously here: why Sears is crying wolf when they may or may not be a victim? Certainly their customers should be kept more in the loop than just using the term “may be”.

No mention is given if Kmart, which is owned by Sears, is part of this possible attack. Since they both run similar register systems, I would say that they too are part of the attack.

It is sad when a company like Sears say that they may be a victim when companies like Neiman Marcus waited months to tell the world they were attacked. It seems that accountability is lacking in the retail industry.

I still believe that other retailers will announce attacks over the last few months including Staples. However, the longer companies wait, the more it will hurt their reputation and destroy their business. Hasn’t any retailer learned anything yet from the Target fiasco? Apparently not yet.

On another front, RadioShack announced this week that it plans on closing up to 1100 stores in the next few months. This would mean up to 20% of their stores would be gone. This is up significantly from the last round of closures announced a few months ago.

Apparently, sales to the retailer continues to slump to record levels causing the company to reevaluate itself. Why did they spend millions of dollars for a Super Bowl ad when they really couldn’t afford it in the first place?

So the real question is which stores will be closed and which ones may even be scaled back significantly.

My thought is that the stores that are going to be history already know who they are. It is just that the list has not been made public as they may not want to scare other retailers in the same areas to want to abandon the region as well. I also believe that many of the employees also know that their stores are closing as well. It is just that these employees are told not to talk to any media outlets as the company has not made any final announcements yet. Many of these stores have probably known for months that they were in line for termination and were warned that if sales didn’t pick up then they would close.

Unfortunately, nobody can make a customer buy anything at a certain store to try to save it from going out of business. What happens happens. Trying to force customers to make purchases will create a hostile environment that is bad for both the customer and the employee. However this is exactly what some companies do such as Staples.

What will be most interesting is to see whether most of the stores that will close are located in malls, strip malls, downtown centers, or standalone locations. My thought is that it might be an equal mix of all of these with more mall locations closing than anything else as malls are failing and many stores are starting to leave malls.

Speaking of company exits, the pizza location Sbarro seems to want to go bankrupt. They closed 155 locations in the last week including the one in the local mall. However, I feel that this company won’t be missed as most of their pizzas have been pretty bad in the last few years. I stopped eating at their locations about 4 years ago. Unfortunately, they are just the latest food court company closing up shop after declining food eaters in malls.

Overall the recent news of all 3 of these companies is more proof of an economy on the brink of collapse. Unfortunately, those who serve on stock boards are blinded by all the negative information and continue to push the stock market to record levels.

Certainly the 1% is winning while the rest of us are losing.