RIP Sears

The point I am trying to make is that the newspaper is no longer the only way to reach a consumer. And the consumer can not only be reached more cheaply but more efficiently through electronic advertising. Companies with the card data can determine the buying patterns of their consumers. So they can send discounts to frequent buyers of tampons to those emails addresses (ie. women) and razor blades to the email addresses of the frequent purchasers (i.e. men) of those items. As an aside the same technology is crushing the traditional woman's magazines.

Advertising revenues have been declining 10% a year. They are going the way of the classifieds. Newspapers barely withstood the loss of the classified business. I don't think many can withstand the loss of retail.

 

One very INEFFECTIVE effect of electronic advertising is that they target you by what you search for.

In my case, I search for something . . . I buy it . . . and THEN I get followed by all these ads for something I just bought (and won't buy again for months, if ever).

 

Perhaps it is ineffective. But I bet it is more effective than a newspaper insert. And people will analyze the data and the electronic advertising will get more effective.

 

Our local Kmart runs inserts sporadically; the local Sears even more sporadically. And they tend to be really thin.
Possibly of note: Best Buy (also regularly on the list of "next to close big-box stores") quit running inserts entirely about two years ago.

 

While Sears/KMart staggers on, RIP Payless.

Payless is closing all its US stores - CNN

 

Bye, bye, bye:

 

I read somewhere that Sears has 20-something stores left. What’s the point anymore? The local one shut down its second floor and it’s now sublet to Primark.

 

What a slow death. I remember the company was in trouble over 20 years ago when the brother of a guy I knew became the rescue CEO and the store near me was selling everything half-off and closing.

 

I’m glad you were wrong. I’ve been in and purchased from Academy and Bass Pro in the last couple of weeks.

 

One of the things I miss about living in Charlotte is having an Academy next door to duck into when wife went on one of her two-hour Hobby Lobby binges.

Got a nice walk and a look at tons of ammunition and hunting supplies that I would never even think about using. I'd spend 90 minutes in there and come out with a can of tennis balls and a pack of gum.

 

My timing was off, but the clock is still ticking on both of them.

Our Academy recently changed the layout of the cash registers. Before you had rows like at a grocery store. Now you've got to snake through a tunnel of impulse buy items and wait until they call you to one of the open registers. Even at slow times, you're going to have a five-minute wait to get to the one register that's open. They also don't have nearly enough people on the floor. By midday on Saturdays, any table with tee shirts on them is an unorganized pile like they just came out of the dryer, shoe boxes are strewn haphazardly around that section and good luck finding somebody to unlock the anti-theft thingamabobs if you want to buy a knife, binos or a fishing reel. Their stock is up compared to five years ago, but the shopping experience is much, much worse at every one I've been in lately.

As for BPS/Cabela's, when Johnny passes on I think it will contract. I could see JP selling it all and keeping Big Cedar Lodge and that new concert venue. I sure don't see him being as in the weeds as his daddy used to be in operations and that's what made BPS what it is.