K-Mart vs Wal Mart vs Target vs Sears vs whatever your local highmarket department store is.

Damn you, local corner shop which isn't a Spar any more but I can't remember what it is, for overpricing everything that doesn't have a price printed on the packaging.

I don't know about actually taking sides properly, but Tesco Value choc chip cookies are so so soooo much nicer than Sainsbury's Economy ones, which are not cookies but particularly foul biscuits with vile black flecks in.

Target is cleaner K mart is Meaner Walmart sells more Weiner

this is why we win

by the way how does ames stay in business wit an average of 5 customers an hour

there is an old Sears in Brooklyn. I may go there tom'w morning for a doorbuster New Balance sale.

I remember these Sears that were these huge castle like buildings. Like this one in Memphis or this one in Minneapolis.

At Sears, Eddie Lampert's Warring Divisions Model Adds to the Troubles

Once you get to this sentence:

"Lampert runs Sears like a hedge fund portfolio, with dozens of autonomous businesses competing for his attention and money. An outspoken advocate of free-market economics and fan of the novelist Ayn Rand, he created the model because he expected the invisible hand of the market to drive better results. If the company’s leaders were told to act selfishly, he argued, they would run their divisions in a rational manner, boosting overall performance.

the rest of the story writes itself.

Sears brings you...Elegant Moments.

Like this.

Not *exactly* SFW.

http://www.businessinsider.com/target-shuts-down-canada-operations-2015-1

Target closing all 133 Canadian stores after being in the market for only two years.

yeah that's been a colossal shitshow. just for local economic health reasons i hope they figure their shit out (same with best buy, god)

It sucks that 17,000 people are about to be laid off.

What happened? There can't be that much of a cultural difference.

Though to add to this:

While the move is not a surprise, it sends a stark reminder to American retailers who think that brands between the U.S. and Canada face no real consumer borders. Burger King, which recently acquired the Canadian brand Tim Hortons, could face its own obstacles trying to get American consumers to embrace the Canadian coffee shop chain.

I will be the first in line at the Little Rock Tim Hortons.

What happened?

They opened all 130 stores (at once instead of rolling it out slowly) and had no real plan for distribution to those 130 stores. Shelves were often empty and they were almost always sold out of everything that was on sale/advertised in their flyers. We have one very close and I have really liked it (at minimum it is SO MUCH cleaner and visually appealing than the gross old Zellers it replaced), so I am bummed it's going, but it definitely had stocking problems that they could not seem to sort out.

Also just realising this means the only Starbucks nearby is probably closing too and omg NO

wow, my 23-year-old self just read my comments in this thread and killed herself

this article from last year goes into what went wrong : http://gawker.com/why-was-target-canada-such-a-disaster-1579554288

I remember going into a Target several months after it opened and there were still many empty shelves. I think most people just stopped going to Target, because you often didn't find what you needed. Things may have improved, but Target was still stuck with a bad reputation.

They opened all 130 stores (at once instead of rolling it out slowly)

well that's insane.

Sounds like they... missed their target

There's still one south of here in Columbus, but I don't know how it stays open. The Tupelo location bailed out years ago.

i was stunned the other day to find the one in kona still living.

There used to be a Kmart in Manhattan it was weird

― walid foster dulles (man alive), Friday, January 16, 2015 11:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Did the one at Astor place close

i remember when that target at atlantic center in brooklyn first opened i went there ironically because lol target in downtown brooklyn. but then i kept going back because there was actually some stuff there that i needed at decent prices.

(i can't break my target habit. i know they're driving mom & pops out of business and their labor policies are terrible but mmmm cheap chinese yoga pants.)

Target is the easiest place for me to stop and grab things after work because it's literally one block over (I can see it from my desk all day).

Got a Target across a 4-lane road from my apt (for however much longer)

Should probably grab a new TV there soon, my 16yo Sanyo won't last much longer.

Xp oh I guess that Astor place one is still open after all. For some reason thought it was closed. Rarely go to that area anymore.

there's also one at penn station

The liquidation sale started this morning ("UP TO 30% OF EVERYTHING!). I went around 10am, about 2 hours after it opened, and it was the busiest I have ever seen it by FAR. Like, probably 2 twice the number of cars in the parking lot than the week before Christmas. Every checkout was open and there was a long, long line which I've never seen before.

Haha, weird.

you know what they say, always be closing

Kmart's going downhill, but do you all have the same proliferation of dollar stores popping up everywhere? I swear, I've seen half a dozen Dollar General stores open up in my town within the last year. And that's adding to the existing Dollar General stores, Family Dollars, Dollar Trees, etc. already all over the place.

It's nice to see these things get smaller, but they're still no alternative to local biz.

From the Family Dollar wiki:

As of August 2011 there were 7,000 stores in 44 states. According to their website, in 2005 Family Dollar opened 500 new stores, 350 more in 2006, and an additional 300 in 2007. According to the Company's 2013 Corporate Profile, in 2010 Family Dollar opened 200 new stores, 300 more in 2011, 475 in 2012, and an additional 500 in 2013.

Dollar General:

On January 3, 2011, Dollar General announced plans to add 625 new stores in the 35 states where the chain already has stores plus Connecticut, Nevada and New Hampshire, and to hire 6,000 employees. The company also planned to improve or move 550 existing stores.

Dollar Tree:

In 2010, the corporation opened its 4,000th chain store and acquired 86 Canadian Dollar Giant stores which are based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The stores are operated in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. These are the first retail locations outside of the United States operated by Dollar Tree.

In 2011, Dollar Tree achieved total sales of $6.63 billion, opened 278 new stores, and completed a 400,000 square-foot expansion of its distribution center in Savannah, Georgia.

In 2012, Dollar Tree opened another 345 new stores and exceeded $7 billion in sales, with an end-of-the-year market cap at $9.13 billion.

In January 2015, Dollar Tree announced plans to divest 300 stores in order to appease US regulators scrutinizing its proposed takeover of Family Dollar stores.[6]

SOooooo much expansion going on. Been in one of these like once. I go into Five Below all the time, and those seem to be cropping up everywhere, but just checked and they're mostly mid-Atlantic regional.

Five Below is mostly toys, it should be noted. Last time I went into a Dollar Something it was like a low-grade CVS without the pharmacy.

I'll sometimes stop at Dollar General before moving on to the real grocery store. They do sell stuff cheap.

Though Sunny was a little perturbed when I bought some Coca-Cola 12-packs a couple of months ago that still had World Cup logos on it.

The "dollar store" used to be those places that sold wigs and weird make-up, lots of hair products. I used to get hair doo dads and scented oils at them, but a lot of people would not set foot in them. I'd say that in the past fifteen or so years they've shed their "reputation" - the stores are very clean and you can get cleaners and paper towels and dog food. I'd wager you could cook a decent meal from dollar store food if you tried.

Oh by the way, Staples and Office Depot are merging. Maybe some day there will be one giant store for everything - one brand. Today's shopping mall will become one giant store owned by one company.

I had thought it was Office Depot merging with Office Max, rather than Staples.

As the guy who handles purchasing in my dept, the last two days have been a pain in the ass. Had tax exempt status "disappear" from the merger.

Dollar Tree and Family Dollar are merging btw, Dollar General rebuffed

I enjoyed this headline:

Family Dollar Stores Sticks With Dollar Tree, Refuses Dollar General's $9.1 Billion Offer

Imagine being paid with 9.1 billion items from a Dollar Tree

I've seen one Five Below around here, but it's the first one I've ever seen and I had no idea what it was. Toys, huh?

Really cold toys.