Emails have circulated over the past couple of years warning that certain retailers were going out of business, resulting in gift cards purchased at these stores having roughly the same worth as a pile of stale pizza crusts. Retailers, of course, have then tripped over one another and themselves denying everything. In many cases, the retailers were perfectly healthy, or at least weren’t in trouble that bad. In today’s economy, however, all bets are off. There’s any number of ways you can spin this, but it isn’t good news any which way you look at it.
First, and most obviously, there’s unemployment. Let’s say that a 2,000-square-foot store employs ten people, some of them full time, and a handful part-time. If you close 384 of those, as Bombay Company did, that’s 3,840 people out of work… and Bombay Company is but one example; nearly every day, the market hemorrhages stores, most of them mom-and-pop outfits that won’t make the news; that fact would be cold comfort to those who’ve lost their jobs.
Then there’s the problem of filling those empty spaces. As an analysis by the Gerson-Lehman Group notes, it didn’t used to be much of a challenge filling a small- or medium-sized (up to ten thousand square foot) space, but even that’s become difficult in the current economic climate. When you factor in a bone-dry credit market, and consumers who aren’t buying, even fools aren’t lately rushing in where angels, or Starbucks, fear to tread. At the higher end–big box stores, which either anchor a mall/plaza, or that stand alone–the problem grows exponentially bigger. It means more job losses, lost tax dollars, lost revenue, and a piece of real estate that’s likely to stay empty for much longer than usual. If a Barnes and Noble closes, it’s not as though they have much competition waiting for that space; other businesses will likely have competitors in close proximity. Contraction among most big-box stores (with a few notable exceptions) means that vacancies are likely to stay that way. (more…)
My wardrobe–outside work, anyway–consists mostly of blue jeans and black t-shirts. If I’m feeling particularly flashy (the nights I want to go out and paint the town beige), I might wear a shade of dark grey. The closest I’ll ever get to a runway is white-knuckling it in an idling jet plane. I like nice clothes just fine, but on my list of priorities, they generally appear several pages back.
Paging Mr. Tolkien: I have to admit that before the total collapse of Iceland’s banking industry–and with it, very nearly, the collapse of the country itself–I thought that their principle export was Björk. How wrong I turned out to be.
I hate commercials where all they give you is a scene with a bunch of happy people and a voiceover with the brand of the medication. “Ask your doctor about Sinthrax… a medicine so powerful we can’t even tell you what it does.” I saw a Claritin commercial once with all these people dancing. The guy said, “Ask your doctor about Claritin.” I’m thinking, “That looks like fun.” Went out and scored some Claritin, and I didn’t dance. Not even once. Just got fatigue and dry mouth. I felt cheated.
You know how sometimes a bug will fly into your ear or nose, and even once you get it out, it still feels like it’s there? I’ve got the same vaguely crawly flashbacks from Goya’s latest commercial.
Here’s a quick way to date yourself: do you remember when MTV actually played music? Like, all day? And from different genres?
I panic when I see the words “New and Improved!” or “Great New Taste!” on my foodstuffs. And it’s not just because I find the exclamation mark vaguely offensive, as if some guy from Marketing is screaming at me. It’s moreso that some person, or group of persons, has decided that what wasn’t broke needed fixing.