We've reached the endgame: Bezos 'in talks' to turn shuttered department stores into Amazon warehouses Amazon is reportedly in talks with realtors to buy and remake the US locations of bankrupt Sears and JC Penney into Amazon fulfillment centers. The Wall Street Journal cites sources familiar in reporting that Simon Property Group, a commercial retailer specializing in mall locations, was in talks with the Bezos' bunch to sell …
Yes. Ordered a USB-charger adapter for an iPaq about 15 years ago. It was about 1.5cm x 3cm x 0.5cm. Normal people would put that in an A6 jiffy bag. HP taped it to the bottom of a box big enough to take a Proliant Server. Delivery driver thought he had been given an empty box to deliver and had the "report damaged delivery" form ready for me.
I remember speccing a Proliant with a tape drive some years back. The HP configuration builder stated that I needed to order a cable to connect the tape drive to the server.
When the parts finally arrived, not only did I find that the tape drive already included the required cable, but the surplus cable I was told I needed actually came in a larger box than the tape drive (and cable).
Absurd.
HP have a huge stock of big cardboard boxes. Why waste time and effort remanufacturing big boxes into smaller boxes when you can use the big boxes just as easily? It may look silly, but if the cost of shipping a large, practically empty box is less expensive - and more importantly, far less harmful to the environment - than recycling all those big boxes into smaller ones, then surely it makes sense to use the box as it is and let the consumer recycle it when it has been used?
And here I was thinking that boxes could be manufactured in a variety of sizes. Today I learned that all boxes start life as Proliant server boxes, and smaller boxes are “recycled” from those.
(Edit: rereading the post I replied to, I can’t tell now whether the the OP was joking or serious.)
In the 70's both Sears and JCPenney had catalog pick-up locations. I guess because shipping was so expensive. You'd order something from the catalog (!) and it would ship to the closest pickup spot. Where I grew up there was a small pick-up spot in town.
You have to remember that Sears or JCPenney carried every product on the planet, many more than would fit in a store.
So it made me laugh when the ecompanies started putting in pickup kioscs. It was just like the old days.
The real irony is Amazon's business is essentially the old Sears catalog except online. Of course Amazon can carry more products than Sears ever did. It does makes sense for someone to repurpose the empty retail space into something. If Amazon bought the soon to be vacant Sears store near me I could literally walk to them. That would add another delivery option for me which I might use.
The real irony is Amazon's business is essentially the old Sears catalog except online. Of course Amazon can carry more products than Sears ever did.
Sears could have carried as much as they wanted on a functional online store; I expect the limitations on how much they could carry really came down to how much they could catalog (in more ways than one).
It is ironic that Sears couldn't make it in an online world. Had they managed to keep the catalog division running a few years more, they might have easily made the transition. After all, online shopping is just a bigger, more flexible version of a printed catalog, with the benefit of being constantly updatable. The back-end of stock management, shipping, billing, etc would have been much the same as before.
But in the end, a big part of their failure comes down to three letters; M B A.
If this transfers to the UK then they should be paying standard retail business rates and rents.
Unfortunately that is unlikely to happen as they will call them "distribution centres" or such like and you will have the lunacy of Amazon paying a quarter of the overheads that a standard retailer does in a unit next door.
@hoola
"Unfortunately that is unlikely to happen as they will call them "distribution centres" or such like and you will have the lunacy of Amazon paying a quarter of the overheads that a standard retailer does in a unit next door."
Is that a bad thing? And for the standard retailer next door is he being shafted by Amazon or punitive business rates and rents?
Saw the comment, came across as a typical example of a free-marketeering Yank using tax-dodging inequality as an excuse to push their usual talking point that the real solution is for *everyone* to be paying low or nonexistent race-to-the-bottom tax rates.
Just as I was about to scroll the page up a bit so I could see the username and check the comment history to see if I was right... I thought "or maybe it's codejunky".
Yep, it was everyone's favourite UK-resident Yank-style free marketeer fanboy.
Hi Codejunky!
@AC
I accept the complement. Glad to be recognised as free market instead of one of those collapsed state approaches.
I do take issue with one thing-
"free-marketeering Yank using tax-dodging inequality as an excuse to push their usual talking point that the real solution is for *everyone* to be paying low or nonexistent race-to-the-bottom tax rates."
How is paying less a problem? So far the concept of paying less has dragged people out of poverty for a considerable time since peasantry. If rents and tax are destroying businesses then reducing them would be one way to support business, especially smaller businesses. Town centres being gutted by rents and tax and imposing increasing costs on people pushed people to online much quicker where lower rents on a warehouse and delivering is a better option.
The opposite of low tax rates is high tax rates. And who wants the latter? (the answer is the people who dont have to pay them)
@AC
"See what I mean? Even after being called out on it, you still can't help parlaying that into an excuse to have the discussion *you* want"
Eh? I responded to your comment. Replying to what you said. If you dont want to discuss it dont mention it (especially when you are replying to me already saying this).
Are you the same AC who looked like an idiot last time too?
"I responded to your comment"
Comment wasn't inviting you to continue your "Tax Is Evil" spiel, it was about the fact you'd *already* hijacked the conversation for your own purposes in the first place(!)
"If you dont want to discuss it"
I intentionally didn't reply to your points because it would have been playing into your hands re: the aforementioned conversation hijacking.
Hope that makes it clear.
@AC
"Comment wasn't inviting you to continue your "Tax Is Evil" spiel, it was about the fact you'd *already* hijacked the conversation for your own purposes in the first place(!)"
So your a moron?
>Original comment mentions the disparity of rents for standard retailer vs distribution centre and I agree with them pointing out the problem being the over taxing not under-taxing.
>You respond claiming race to the bottom waawaa I want my dummy.
>I respond lower costs are better than higher costs.
>You complain I responded to your comment because *still waiting on a reason*
Advice- if you dont want someone to respond to your comment dont post a comment. If you dont want a reply to your comment dont reply to a comment. If your too fragile for this world maybe AC isnt enough to protect your feelings of self importance.
"I intentionally didn't reply to your points"
So your not only AC but your intention was to be an intelligence vacuum to the conversation by adding nothing (and even failing at that).
"the aforementioned conversation hijacking"
Where I respond on topic to the commenter I was replying to. And as a dumbass you complain? You dont have to respond, you choose to. Sometimes its better to be quiet and people think your an idiot than to say something and prove it.
However: If by any chance you are still in school/college I am sorry for being so hard on you. I am adding this not in an attempt to insult but the way your following the thread suggests you may not have much life experience but this is something that will change over time and I am sorry for calling you stupid and dumbass in place of a lack of experience. If you are an adult then yes you are a dumbass
"So your a moron?"
Two points; (a) Simply calling me an "idiot" or a "moron" doesn't make it so if it doesn't follow logically from what I said, and (b) If you're going to insult someone's intelligence, it's a good idea not to be the one making grammatical errors such as "your [sic] a moron".
Also, in your earlier post, I think you meant "compliment", not "complement". It's an easy mistake to make... if you're a "moron". :-)
"I am adding this not in an attempt to insult but the way your following the thread suggests you may not have much life experience"
Nah, that's definitely a passive-aggressive/backhanded insult. But, er... nice try!
"your intention was to be an intelligence vacuum to the conversation by adding nothing"
We're having a conversation, just not the one *you* wanted to turn it into. Sorry for not playing along... wait, no, I'm not sorry for that at all! :-)
"the way your [sic] following the thread [..] If you are an adult then yes you are a dumbass"
But at least I'm not illiterate!
@AC
"Two points; (a) Simply calling me an "idiot" or a "moron" doesn't make it so"
I know. That is why my reply to you explains clearly why you are a moron. A whole comment addressing how your an AC who doesnt even seem to be following the thread you are responding to.
"If you're going to insult someone's intelligence, it's a good idea not to be the one making grammatical errors such as "your [sic] a moron"."
Sorry not an english graduate, dyslexia did me no favours there. But if thats the best example you have to invalidate my entire comment explaining what an idiot you appear to be I can remain confident in my assessment.
"Nah, that's definitely a passive-aggressive/backhanded insult. But, er... nice try!"
Actually I was trying not to be too harsh on you if you are a school kid. Literally excusing you from being an idiot or moron if you are a kid.
"We're having a conversation"
About what? so far you seem to be complaining I am responding to your comments that you didnt intend to mean anything of value. How about you start again from the beginning. What is your point? Do you have a point? Are you just a troll?
"Sorry for not playing along... wait, no, I'm not sorry for that at all! :-)"
Moron cant even make up its own mind. Although a popular saying amongst kids.
"But at least I'm not illiterate!"
Then why cant you follow the conversation you say we are having? Really it is difficult holding a conversation with someone who cant follow what they have already said
US shopping malls have anchor stores that are usually owned by the retailer. These are typically large department stores. The mall owner then rents smaller stores to other retailers. The idea is the anchors will draw in enough foot traffic that the other retailers will do well. In the US, the retail space is overbuilt with many malls struggling or even closing as US shopping habits change. While Amazon is often blamed for this, they are more a symptom than a cause. The changes were happening before Amazon and online shopping came on the scene.
Yes, the MBAs were already well into the destroy-all-companies trend well before online shopping came along. Online shopping ended up being a way *around* the shit service being provided by stores.
Way back when, Mad Magazine used to do these spoof cartoons about how some business or another could go out of their way to provide crap service. Seems the MBAs thought they were instruction manuals rather than parody.
(I also think the change in tax laws that changed unsold merchandise/backstock from liabilities to assets didn't help either).
.... of Sears was probably the 1940s, before discount department store chains such as E.J. Korvets and Zayre’s exploded onto the scene. Sears still served the heartland, where such discount operations hadn’t taken hold yet, and people everywhere in the US shipped at Sears for tools and major appliances, but the dominance Sears once had in American retail was pretty much a thing of the past by 1960.
Eddie Lampert has done more to kill Sears than Jeff Bezos.
Similarly, JC Penney blew itself up by hiring an Apple Store exec who did not understand JCP's business or customers, who then set himself to the task of alienating the latter from the former. JCP wasn't healthy when Ron Johnson got there, but he put it into a full-on death spiral.
Amazon has definnitely blown up plenty of brick & mortar; but in these specific cases, Bezos is more of a scavenger than a hunter.
The sprawling warehouses required by online retailers can only be sited on ginormous empty (or empty-able) parcels often out at the ass end of nowhere, way beyond the last transit stop. Re-purposing empty mall anchor space as warehouses at least has the potential to put these ... jobs ... within reach of folks who do not have cars. Not that I at all support how Amazon't treats its employees, but if municipalities will continue to fall all over themselves to lure Bezo-Marts to their jurisdictions in the name of "creating jobs" then the jobs should at least be accessible to those who might need them most.
Most US malls of any substantial size, the sorts with a giant anchor store at one end, are surrounded by hectares of car parks while at the same time not being served by public transport particularly well. In the US many people working minimum-wage jobs own cars to get to work because the car is a necessity. Amazon pay a little more than minimum-wage, typically and for the rest there are always Bezos buses.
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