Retail Sales Apocalypse

the economy is falling apart of that there is no doubt!

It is bad, bad, bad.

Seriously.

One neighbor is self-employed and owns an office-supply store and she said it never was as bad as it is now and she hopes she can get trough the next months.


My other neighbor owns a small car repair chain which ran pretty well over the last two decades but he is very serious considering closing most of his stores and shrink back to his best running one.

I am in exports of automation and industrial processing .. and while we blasted trough 2001, 2003, 2008 ff. with 2011 being the best year in our company ever ... 2013 is not meager.

2013 is a f... BLACK HOLE

Most employees do not know .. yet.

Back to retail.

Shops are .. not packed at all. Inner city is dead like a graveyard (no problem finding a parking spot, any time, any day) and big box retail around the city is almost empty on workdays with saturday being the only day where visits are .. "normal"

I can manage my time and do my shopping on weekdays trying to avoid the crowd at weekends.

And there is massive retail space available for sale or rent .. and more and more stores close.

It is pretty grim out there .. and we are actually a country doing well .. at least that is what our politicians say.

There is a huge amount of empty retail space around here too. It really gets me annoyed watching the local politicians on the news - they just keep increasing the business rates (tax on business premises here in the UK), and keep increasing parking charges for towns, yet the retailers are selling less and less because they are losing trade to the internet and also people have less money.

It seems the politicians are either unaware of the internet or completely stark raving mad. So many older people seem to think things are just going through a 'blip' and will return to 'normal.'

When are the old Baby Boomers (because lets face it, most politicians are of that age group) going to realise that this is not a 'recession' or even a 'depression' but it is actually the death throes of the entire system?!!!

They will not.

Mostly for the reason that for their 50 to 60 years never experienced anything else than growth AND all of them have nice incomes that are very stable.

Retail and tourism will be in the toilet for the next 4 years. Anyone who can do simple math, figure this up:

47 billion x 12,000 = 5.64 Trillion or so.

This is how much disposable income has been taken out of the U.S. economy (through new taxation) to pay for welfare recipients ObamaCare. That is, per year, folks.

Have fun with that.

America is still humming, People already camping out for Black Friday, Cause we have Walmart.

Ive been shopping online too and in apparal most items get sold out pretty quickly. Theres been many stuff I was trying to buy only to get a SOLD OUT message pop up.

Well, buying on credit is not that common in europe and most people do not have credit cards but debit cards (with hard limits for overdraft) even though they have the same names like normal credit cards.

Retail is dead because there have been massive, non-reported, layoffs. Expect a horrible collapse in the first quarter as retail business report their horrible "Christmas season".
Businesses simply cannot handle the upcoming tax load being placed upon them.

Sorry, but you are wrong.

[link to www.msnbc.msn.com]

I like how they always fail to mention the fact that on-line sales are totally booming and are way off the charts high above any annalist predictions.

I can't afford to buy anything. I will be doing good to contribute to my family's thanksgiving dinner.

And what sucks is that I work. In my opinion, only foodstamp recipients will have an abundant Thanksgiving.

Nope, not wrong. it was quarterly sales, Its going to go back up when people hit Black Friday and pick up their layway..


Still, the world's largest retailer said sales so far this month were better than expected in the United States as its low- price strategy has resonated in an economy where unemployment continued to be high.

Sales rose 3.4 percent to $113.20 billion for the third quarter ended October 31. Analysts, on average, looked for $114.96 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, sales would have been $114.9 billion, the company said.


Sales at Walmart U.S. stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, rose 1.5 percent.

I hope you are correct, but I don't see it.

We are having an old fashioned thanksgiving and Christmas. Which means no gifts, not black Friday insanity, no consumerism. Just a family get together.

Get off the computer, =) Get out thanksgiving evening and the weekend coming up and youll see the parking lots packed and the stores jammed packed and the traffic will be crazy..

Dont trust the paper, go and see with your own eyes and experience, People are still shopping up a storm.

I already did my shopping and Im broke for thanksgiving other than a full tank of gas..

I might have paid more but at least it assured I have the stuff and it wont sell out and I fight the crowds..

In our town in Central Florida you wouldn't know there is a recession on. Restaurants are packed and stores are busy. It is kinda odd

Haven't done the Black Friday in many years. Really stay away from all the commercialism associated with the holidays. For me that isn't what they are about.

Last weekend, Chuck E Cheeses was packed full, Mall parking lot was packed, Movie theatre was packed, Olive Garden, Perkins, Had to drive further out to get a parking space..

Sales rising at Walmart is not necessarily a good thing for the rest of the retail world. IMO, it means people are seeking out lower price over quality.

Im starting to believe richer people are more intelligent and the poor are not. Quality goods is a investment. They will last longer in the long run thus delaying repurchase..

When the people go cheap, they end up spending more in the end to replace and re buy.

I live in the South US. We own a lumber / harware store and we are hanging on by our toenails. Wal Mart, Lowes and Home Depot are killing us even though our prices are better than the chain stores.

If you tell people enough times that you have the low, low prices, people believe you regardless of truth. We don't have the advertising capital that they do.

It's not recession or doom's day, it's just that we are slowly being eaten alive by these giants.

Retail means to buy stuff cheap and re-cut it (literally) to be sold for more than its worth.

Retail's failing? Good, more honesty about where our clothing and food comes from is needed anyway.

Free Planet.

AND ANOTHER THING: RE-CUT is the basis of the Drug's Trade.

You'z bein' profit-uzed, geezers.

Used!

Whilst you are correct in what 'retail' is in essence, the problem is that as it dies it is the small people who suffer. As profit margins (the bit that you refer to as "to be sold for more than its worth") shrink to the point of almost non-existence then the only ones who can capitalise on that are the huge Wal Marts of the world. And they often actually force producers to lower their wholesale costs further.

It is total and utter idiocy to have this attitude that shops and retailers are peddling some sort of crime by adding a decent profit margin. A decent profit margin means that more businesses, especially small ones, can stay open and give us more choice - it also makes it sustainable. There is nothing 'wrong' with profit margins - why do people think there is? There is actually something wrong when there isn't a margin because we end up with what we have now; totally unsustainable corporate dominated bullshit.

Every man in his own town should be the business owner and provider of product for his locale..

Its how it used to be, Family business, Now its cookie cutter corporate chains with thousands upon thousands of stores, that spreads like a cancer eating up everything in its path.

I feel so scared for kids nowadays, No more family trade to take over, Just a expensive college on student loan to have sex and booze it up in a coed dorm, all for a liberal arts degree

And the Young men will soon have no way to go except military..

Thank you! We try to make as much as possible that we sell is from local, sustainable and reputable companies and we do not have the buying power that the big guys do to force manufactures to sell their products to them at insane losses. We have employees and expenses and in order to pay them, we must make a profit so we keep the margin as low as possible and don't play with sale prices to make it appear you are getting a huge deal on something by artificially raising the prices...still, we are barely making it. If it gets much worse, we will have to lay people off and we have gone over 60 years without doing that. The business has been in the family for over 110 years. It's very sad.

in Ukraine it is already a disaster (retail sales), our economy is 4% MINUS in the last quarter.

Noone buys anything - i even just heard saleswoman closing her shop say this to her neighbor-shop owner, before i entered home.

retail sales stop - production stops - economy stops - SHTF

that's actually because people are becoming poorer - no money - no purchase.

I am trying to economize myself too. im not buying almost ANYTHING - spend less than a 1US $ per week.

economizing, in the long term, can kill the f** ponzi scheme economy and spoil the business for 'masters'.

muahahahahaha! (hahahaha.....)

may it burn and tumble (even if we, slaves, go down with it)!

Correct.

I started hardcore downsizing my life back in 2004

And got strange "is he broke ?" responses from my surroundings .. while in reality i am better off than ever before in my life !



I have to admit: i buy myself one toy for christmas every year, with toy i mean something that is not bought for any other purpose than having fun with it.

So i have to chose wisely and not buying consumer crap over the year .. but only ONE piece in one year .. i have to say:

Although i am getting old .. there is something like childhood-christmas magic back .. and i can not wait to finally unpack my new "toy"

It is a manly-mans toy though.