Very nice Article. Hindsight is easy, but RS made a lot of mistakes. I guess the first 3 CEOs where looking at the company and the last 5 where looking at the stock market.
Very sad to see so many store have to shut down. Hopefully there will be a resurgence of the company with new owners and a new philosophy. It is a shame that they are not involved with school science classes more.
Basically keeping hundreds or thousands of stores open with the light's on, the rent and the staff to pay is a very inefficient way of getting stuff from the factory to the consumer. We consumers don't want the stores and the people that work there, we only want the stuff.
The internet is optimizing all that intermediate junk we don't want away.
Quite what we all do when everything we do has been optimized away I don't know.
But there has to be some feed back here. Eventually there are no jobs for anyone because they have been optimized away. So eventually nobody can afford to buy anything, what with being jobless. So eventually those huge optimal systems have no market and the economies of scale that they enjoy now don't work.
If B&M stores can't compete then they need to move on. There are some items that most people can wait a few days to get. However, it's the "I need it now" mentality that keeps them going. I myself will buy what I need on the Internet if I do not need it right away. I hate paying jacked up prices for an item just because the B&M's have to pay huge Mall or Strip Mall rents. I once had a client that owned 1 smoothie shop. The building was his. He decided to expand. Opened up 1 brand new one in the Mall when they expanded and another in a strip mall. Needless to say that the rent was so ridiculous that he ended up closing those 2 less than 18 months after opening. And he did not even have Internet competition!!!!
Eventually there are no jobs for anyone because they have been optimized away. So eventually nobody can afford to buy anything, what with being jobless.
It isn't as dismal as that! For starters, the delivery business is thriving! This helps everyone from DHL and FedEx drivers to Boeing and Airbus employees. Next, someone has to make everything. And someone else has to make the stuff that makes the stuff.
And then there are all the boots-on-the-ground folk who build houses, roads, schools, administrative buildings, and those who provide utilities.
Finally, healthcare is huge! Baby boomers are getting old and sick. That alone should fund the civilized world for the next 30 years.
If B&M stores can't compete then they need to move on. There are some items that most people can wait a few days to get. However, it's the "I need it now" mentality that keeps them going. I myself will buy what I need on the Internet if I do not need it right away. I hate paying jacked up prices for an item just because the B&M's have to pay huge Mall or Strip Mall rents. I once had a client that owned 1 smoothie shop. The building was his. He decided to expand. Opened up 1 brand new one in the Mall when they expanded and another in a strip mall. Needless to say that the rent was so ridiculous that he ended up closing those 2 less than 18 months after opening. And he did not even have Internet competition!!!!
Very sad to see so many store have to shut down. Hopefully there will be a resurgence of the company with new owners and a new philosophy. It is a shame that they are not involved with school science classes more.
If you read the article I posted, they mention that the hobbyist/tech crowd did not pay the bills....cell phones did...until recently.
Someone must have slipped me a happy pill. To conclude from this article that things are not going well for Amazon seems to me to be completely unfounded. :-)
That a few deliveries by Amazon Prime customers during the Christmas rush may have taken more than two days to arrive != crisis! By the article's own numbers, Amazon Prime customers are overwhelmingly satisfied. And what percentage of Amazon customers are even Amazon Prime customers? I'm certainly not. I don't need two-day satisfaction! I nearly always specify USPS delivery, anyway. It's much cheaper, and after hundreds of purchases I've still never lost a thing.
A whole bunch o' people must be suffering Seasonal Affective Disorder right now.
Someone must have slipped me a happy pill. To conclude from this article that things are not going well for Amazon seems to me to be completely unfounded. :-)
Yeah, me too. I'm pretty sure Amazon is here to stay for a good long while.
Amazon prime sucked several times for me, even on non-holiday seasons. Products were suddenly out of stock, tracking said "delivered" but I see no mailman and so on. So I've decided not to continue my prime membership.
If you read the article I posted, they mention that the hobbyist/tech crowd did not pay the bills....cell phones did...until recently.
That's the trouble with bean counters except it's the geek coming in to pick up some of those parts which don't pay the bills and ends up eye-balling the tech bling hanging around, then goes home with those parts he originally came in for, and a little bling too. Happens all the time but as soon as the bean counters removed the parts that don't pay the bills they no longer get any geeks coming around anymore, and those shiny new cell phones just end up gathering dust.
We have a chain of stores and franchises here called Jaycar, they stock all the common geeky bits that get the hobbyist/techie/student coming in, and they also have a lot of gizmos, gimmicky, useful, and otherwise, and they are always packed and are quite successful.
Too_Many_Tools
Posts: 765
Comments
Mike
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-02-02/inside-radioshack-s-slow-motion-collapse
Yeah..I was surprised by some companies...did not know that they were in that deep of trouble.
I also do expect Best Buy to die...Amazon is targeting them in the electronics market.
Very nice Article. Hindsight is easy, but RS made a lot of mistakes. I guess the first 3 CEOs where looking at the company and the last 5 where looking at the stock market.
Where has the world come to...
Sad!
Mike
The internet is optimizing all that intermediate junk we don't want away.
Quite what we all do when everything we do has been optimized away I don't know.
But there has to be some feed back here. Eventually there are no jobs for anyone because they have been optimized away. So eventually nobody can afford to buy anything, what with being jobless. So eventually those huge optimal systems have no market and the economies of scale that they enjoy now don't work.
I don't know.
It isn't as dismal as that! For starters, the delivery business is thriving! This helps everyone from DHL and FedEx drivers to Boeing and Airbus employees. Next, someone has to make everything. And someone else has to make the stuff that makes the stuff.
And then there are all the boots-on-the-ground folk who build houses, roads, schools, administrative buildings, and those who provide utilities.
Finally, healthcare is huge! Baby boomers are getting old and sick. That alone should fund the civilized world for the next 30 years.
Life is not good in Amazonville....
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/exclusive-survey-trouble-amazon-primes-two-day-deliveries-164016706--finance.html
One of the reasons why Amazon will be forced to have a B&M presence....like having a store in every neighborhood...like Radio Shack. ;<)
Read the article at the end of this article...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-02-02/inside-radioshack-s-slow-motion-collapse
The mall business model is broken...most malls are in a slow motion death spiral.
If you read the article I posted, they mention that the hobbyist/tech crowd did not pay the bills....cell phones did...until recently.
Someone must have slipped me a happy pill. To conclude from this article that things are not going well for Amazon seems to me to be completely unfounded. :-)
That a few deliveries by Amazon Prime customers during the Christmas rush may have taken more than two days to arrive != crisis! By the article's own numbers, Amazon Prime customers are overwhelmingly satisfied. And what percentage of Amazon customers are even Amazon Prime customers? I'm certainly not. I don't need two-day satisfaction! I nearly always specify USPS delivery, anyway. It's much cheaper, and after hundreds of purchases I've still never lost a thing.
A whole bunch o' people must be suffering Seasonal Affective Disorder right now.
Yeah, me too. I'm pretty sure Amazon is here to stay for a good long while.
That's the trouble with bean counters except it's the geek coming in to pick up some of those parts which don't pay the bills and ends up eye-balling the tech bling hanging around, then goes home with those parts he originally came in for, and a little bling too. Happens all the time but as soon as the bean counters removed the parts that don't pay the bills they no longer get any geeks coming around anymore, and those shiny new cell phones just end up gathering dust.
We have a chain of stores and franchises here called Jaycar, they stock all the common geeky bits that get the hobbyist/techie/student coming in, and they also have a lot of gizmos, gimmicky, useful, and otherwise, and they are always packed and are quite successful.