Ridiculous overbuilding and opening of WAAAY too many stores the past 5 years or so is now coming unglued.
Radio Shack toasting 552 stores.
http://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-radioshack-stores-closing-2017-3
3 replies (most recent on top)
As manufacturers and retailers bought non US made items it creates a rural rust belt in Missouri where all these 2 or 3 factory towns that Wal-Mart served have lost the factories to China and the economy has turned back to agriculture only this the only place for jobs is KC, Stl, and Sprnfld where there is competition like Target, Malls, strip malls, etc plus decent internet access means rural Ag towns don't need Walmart's higher prices when they can do 2 day shipping for cheaper rates and better quality items
The US has been overbuilt in retail space for a while though. That's not new. It's just coming to a head because people's income isn't growing.
Realistically folks work a lot more for no more money. Because of that we will see people start to reassess what they value. Experiences are starting to matter more to people. And we are seeing an early shift away from mass produced consumerism to a focus on having less things. What people do purchase will be better quality.
Retailers will either have to play to offering a good experience and quality goods. Or they will have to be cheap and convenient. On the cheap and convenient side of things, you better be ultra efficient or you can't get there.
The question is, can Walmart lean out enough to go back to being cheap? I don't know. The issue is that their stores are too big for ultra efficiency. And half of them are filled with cheap quality apparel/general merchandise that people are going to want less and less. So how do you get ultra efficient/cheap in food if people don't want to shop the other half of your stores?
Walmart's problem is what has happened to the middle class. As the middle class has declined, it's put a beating on their fortunes. I hope they figure it out. We are all in big trouble if Walmart goes down.
Yep, pretty much every retailer has gone right off the deep end opening new stores, as if all that mattered were revenues, not profits.
Think they call that "Financial Engineering" and it ends very, very badly.