Malled

My lovely wife and I refuse to go shopping on Black Friday. We certainly don’t shop on Thanksgiving. That’s when people should have the day off to spend with their family.

With that in mind, we thought we’d get some early Christmas shopping done on Tuesday. We’ll be far from home on Christmas so we want to get a few things for the grandkids ahead of time.

There are a couple of massive thriving malls near my daughter’s house. My lovely wife and I split up. I spent hours going from one end of the mall to the other. Nothing in the place interested me in the least. Hours later I caught up to my lovely wife. She was still in the first large store she stopped in. The poor girl was bouncing around the store like a ball bearing in a packing crate. She hadn’t found anything of interest either.

At one time malls provided at least a few things of interest to us. Now it all seems like so much nothing.

On the bright side, we did find some gifts in a large bookstore earlier in the day. Large bookstores aren’t all about books anymore. They had a good selection of quality toys and games. Of course, being a bookstore, I found a few things of interest. At the very least they can be counted on to have some boating magazines.

-Sixbears

Repair or Chuck it

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been going through my “needs repair” stuff. If it can’t be repaired it goes right in the trash. That clears up a lot of clutter.

I happened to be in North Conway New Hampshire where there a lot of shopping outlets. A couple of my old camping stoves needed parts to go back in service. There are a number of outdoor stores in town. In the past it was no problem to get what I needed. Not this time. Nobody stocked any repair parts. I guess there’s more money to be made in selling new things.

A couple of quick repair jobs have turned into scavenger hunts. I’m pretty sure those parts are available on-line from somebody. It would be one thing if the stoves were something exotic. That’s not the case. One’s a Coleman stove and the other is a MSR, very common brands.

While I was there I wanted a couple of Ferro rods (Ferrocerium) for starting fires. It took a while to get across exactly what I wanted. The second clerk got it, but only because he once bought a knife that came with one in the package. Nobody had those in stock either.

It’s said that retail is dying. I’m trying to do business with these people, but when they no longer stock what I want, on-line is the next best option.

-Sixbears

I Don’t Work Here

The other day I was in my local Walmart. There was exactly one staffed checkout lane in operation. Of course one of the workers tried to direct me to the self checkout.

“I don’t work here,” I said.

Then I got in line at the full service checkout. Now I’m wondering about how hard it will be to completely stop going there. One of the downsides of living way out in the country is the lack of shopping options. However, Walmart keeps encouraging me to find solutions.

They also keep running out of stuff. The other day they had no bananas. My gas station has bananas. Recently they were out of peanut butter. It wasn’t just one brand or size, they were out of everything. How does that even happen?

Walmart is huge, but that doesn’t mean it can’t fail. Sears and Kmart used to be huge too. Now they are a mere shadow of their former self and shrinking all the time. When the next recession/depression hits we are going to see a much faster contraction in retail. Companies are going to disappear right and left.

I’ve friends who never shop Walmart. However, they travel a lot and have more disposable income than I do. Frankly, it’s easy to make a statement when you can afford alternatives. Then again, just because it’s harder for me doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Walmart’s drop in service and products have been making the alternatives look better all the time.

-Sixbears

Retail Ruins

There’s been a lot of press ink spilled on the demise of retail. All you have to do is look at the huge number of failed and failing malls to get a feel for that. Add to that the number of main streets falling into ruin and maybe they are onto something. Right now there are numerous YouTube channels that do things like explore dead malls.

Apparently, hanging around the mall was a once a rite of passage for suburban youth. When I was growing up the nearest real mall was at least one hundred miles away. When I did get to to a mall it was a big deal as it was something different.

Over the years I slowly came to the realization that malls didn’t really have much of what I was looking for. My shopping tends more towards hardware stores, building supply, marine supply, and books. Malls used to have bookstores, often two or three different ones. These days you are lucky if a mall has even one, and they generally aren’t doing well.

Last week on a rare sunny day my lovely wife took the long trip over the White Mountains to the tourist town of N. Conway NH. It was like driving from winter into spring so definitely worth the trip south. The downtown is crammed with lots of little shops. They cater to the Massachusetts tourist crowd taking advantage of New Hampshire’s zero percent sales tax.

It was pleasant to be able to pop in and out of the many shops. They even had things I wanted to buy. They had some odd items like a special tea infuser and a universal peculator glass top. Combining all our purchases I think we spent something like sixteen dollars. We certainly aren’t the ones keeping the downtown alive.

Closer to home, away from the tourists, the local downtown isn’t doing all that well. Of course the major employers left, along with half the population. It’s hard to keep a downtown vibrant when that happens. There are some businesses hanging on and a few new ones trying to make a go of it. I’ve seen worse looking main streets. Still, it’s a struggle.

On-line shopping is a major force. Frankly, it’s a lot easier to get things home delivered than to drive miles hoping someone will have what I need.

Currently the largest employer in the nation is Walmart. Even they are quietly closing some stores. It’s a drop in the bucket, but there’s no business law that states they can’t go under too.

I thinking that maybe there are fewer people who shop recreationally and are sticking to things they really need. When you get right down to it, we generally need a lot less stuff than we buy. Economic and social trends could quickly rewrite the retail map.

-Sixbears