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the trump tutelage posted:It's worth noting that these are only pros if you believe our current consumption/consumerism culture is a good thing. I mean they're kind of good in a "humans necessarily consume to exist" sense, some people might buy too much stuff but everyone needs to buy some stuff in order to live, we all need clothes, food, and shelter.
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Dec 5, 2016 10:42
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Sylink posted:I hope the general poverty is helping push consumerism down the toilet. Buying poo poo is a soulless experience and I've tried to minimize personally. Its like that lovely cube city from the Reboot cartoon plopped down in every suburb forever. I mean maybe also some people just like pretty things and don't have the money to spend on vegan organic ethically sourced natural homeopathic tat so instead they go where they can afford?
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Dec 5, 2016 22:06
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El Mero Mero posted:I mean, nobody is really arguing that massive retailers are going away, but I think a good argument can be made for the death of the big box store and its subsequent replacement with small shopping corridors filled with boutique shops stocked with difficult-to-find-online and small run production goods. Assuming you have a ready supply of poncy rich fuckers to shop at the boutique shops and their absurd markups and you don't mind everyone who needed to go to the big store for basic goods doing without, sure.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:14
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Are they still doing that insane libertarian management strategy? If so that's frankly a miracle of inertia that they haven't already collapsed.
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Dec 8, 2016 17:16
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glowing-fish posted:I don't know what this is, but it sounds fascinating. I can't remember the details but if it's Sears I'm thnking of, a new CEO came in and decided that what the company needed was to operate on an internal market economy. As opposed to say, wal-mart, possibly the best example of the power of central planning in existence. So at Sears, each department, store, everything, competes against all the other ones for resources. It's like one step above getting all the GSMs to do king of the ring cage matches until the last one standing gets first dibs on stock distribution. It worked about as well as you could expect.
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Dec 8, 2016 18:07
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Aww I'm a little disappointed, that's not what I think of when I think "libertarian management style", it sounds highly structured and rigid if inane. A libertarian management style is like, a hilariously well-spun way of saying a manager doesn't give a gently caress what happens if they even show up at all, which obviously would be funny coming from the CEO. Libertarian management in that he seems convinced that turning the company's internal management into galt's gulch is the way to improve productivity.
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Dec 8, 2016 18:15
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I'm not sure this characterization is fair - isn't there another lens where it's walmart subsidizing the government's care of those? Surely without walmart the government would only have to (or at least ought to) pay more to care for those employees. Sure, we can ask walmart to take on more of the burden, since they certainly benefit, but it seems more like walmart subsidizing food stamps in exchange for work than the other way around. It's the government subsidizing the company because the way companies work (supposedly) is that they find a way to make the labour of an individual profitable while paying that individual well enough for them to be able to provide their labour. If they require government assistance they aren't being paid well enough to provide their labour, and if the company cannot afford to increase their wages then the company is not viable. It's being propped up by the state.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:10
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:What does that mean though? "Paid well enough to provide their labor" is murky - who decided that? If walmart didn't pay, say, 70% of their living expenses, doesn't the bill get passed on to the taxpayer? You can argue that it is unethical to incentivize people to trade labor at such a low rate, and it's better for the government to pay so they don't have to work those hours, but that's an argument with a very different character than the one you're making. Every dollar that walmart pays out is a dollar that the government can use for something else - in a vacuum, isn't that good? In theory, if the government withdrew their subsidy then *~market forces~* would necessitate wal-mart pulling their weight or sinking and a better competitor stepping in. In practice you'd probably just lose some jobs as the company would just stop using human labour for as many things as they do because it would no longer be as cheap. At best, government wage subsidy is propping up exploitation because the state doesn't have the fortitude to tackle the problem of dwindling employment at the source, at worst it's direct funneling of taxpayer money into the private sector. In neither case is it really a good option. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 17:40
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I'm skeptical here - people working at Walmart are price takers. I think that, without government "subsidy", they'd keep working at Walmart and just suffer more. If it's their only lifeline left, what choice do they have? I don't think the government removing its subsidy and letting people starve is on the table - to me the main choices right now are the government pays X, or Walmart pays Y and the government pays X-Y. If the state removes its support then the result is either walmart pays a living wage, or people are no longer alive to work at walmart, or possibly people are rioting because their friends and family are literally starving to death and the state is failing to prevent it. In neither case is walmart going to be able to provide its service properly without the state subsidy.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:26
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Does anyone remember service merchandise? I guess it existed in some form till the early 2000s but does anyone remember it in the old days? That's an ikea.
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Dec 10, 2016 18:24
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fishmech posted:No, in an Ikea you go grab the stuff yourself. A Service Merchandise had all the Ikea displays of stuff, but if you wanted that bed/chair/whatever you saw, you had either the staff go get it in the back-warehouse, or most of the time had to wait for it to be delivered to the store from a distribution center. Then some kind of blend of an Ikea and an Argos. Argos functions like that but it generally has a catalogue rather than a showroom.
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Dec 10, 2016 19:09
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You could buy a granny cart.
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Dec 16, 2016 16:07
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Well speaking as someone who works in a store it's quite nice to have your workplace not be designed for winter attire on the inside. Also if you have to go to the store a lot because you can't carry more than one bag home you could go to the store less often if you got a cart and save your arms. This would seem to be desirable if you find shopping particularly aggrieving. You could also maybe unbutton your coat once you are inside the store and then re fasten it when you leave, thus allowing you a finer degree of thermoregulation. Also options: Take off your hat, take off your gloves, undo your scarf. Additionally, as a lifehack from someone who is really good at the shopping thing, if you don't know where a thing is, you can ask another person if they know where it is. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 16, 2016 16:49
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JonathonSpectre posted:Anyone here old enough to remember when K-Mart had "blue light specials?" They'd roll out a rack of pants or plates or some other loving thing and turn on a blue light and make an announcement over the loudspeaker that began with the famous, "ATTENTION K-MART SHOPPERS... there is a blue light special in... AISLE SEVEN!" and there would a God-damned stampede towards that flashing light. I don't think we have had anything like that in the UK but I think there is ground to be broken in the combination shopping/gameshow experience in the digital age. Perhaps we could televise the whole thing and also introduce inflatable obstacles for the shoppers to overcome in order to get at the deals.
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Jan 12, 2017 23:56
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exploded mummy posted:I take it you've never seen Supermarket Sweep No I know there's actual shopping gameshows I mean making normal shopping like a gameshow. Like, you've been framed combined with its a knockout but for shopping.
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Jan 13, 2017 00:03
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BrandorKP posted:They still have employees count in most grocery stores. Even though the computer already generates a count from the informant collected at POS . Especially for liquor and lottery. They might be regulated depending on the state. We count at least once a year every single thing in the store in every single chain I've ever worked in, and for high error stock (stuff that gets nicked a lot) we do it on a monthly basis at least. Normally I just do it whenever anything looks wrong. Having the computer is really just a substitute for having a big binder full of numbers, the computer keeps track of the numbers and gives them to you and anyone else who needs them when you ask it. You still have to actually put the numbers in yourself. I feel like it's the EPOS that does the correcting and I do the actual counting. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Feb 27, 2017 |
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Feb 27, 2017 15:10
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fishmech posted:Well the thing is before computers, you'd easily be doing the total store count once a week instead of once a year, and the high error stock might be getting checked daily. It adds up to a lot more work. Well that's sort of what I mean, the EPOS corrects regularly and that enables less counting, but you still do a lot of counting.
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Feb 27, 2017 17:53
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Enigma89 posted:I have to be a bit vague due to my job but I work for a major company that does a lot of business with Wal-Mart and other big box retailers. While I have a similar experience with getting compliance on the ground from big box stores, how the hell do returns work without a receipt?
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Mar 22, 2017 19:29
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That's odd because everywhere I've ever worked if you don't have a receipt you can't return it. If they don't know how much you paid for it they won't give you any money for it. UK/US is weird.
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Mar 24, 2017 19:33
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What is "technology brand" if not electronics? Which, uh, isn't doing so well either? I mean I guess a generic phone store is a thing but, well, I can't help but feel like they're a weird thing that I don't really understand the appeal of and seem apt to be replaced by just buying phones in the supermarket. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 22:34
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duz posted:Yeah, but you probably also pay your staff enough to care. Turns out when you pay poverty wages, the clerk will approve anything to get you to leave them alone. Ehhhh wages aren't great here, it's more just that literally everyone from the top down would not accept goods without a receipt and I think customers expect that to be the case too. I don't even know if you can do returns without receipts to enter into the system in most stores.
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Mar 26, 2017 04:03
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How on earth do stores stay in business only carrying up to a 12? Ok that's apparently a UK 14 but that's still, well, like only selling up to size M.
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Apr 11, 2017 02:07
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:It's extremely common for women's clothing stores to effectively only carry XS and S. One of the few retail clothing success stories of recent years is Brandy Melville, which literally only carries one size. Not "one size fits all," one size. And it's roughly equivalent to an American 2. But who buys them if they don't fit anybody? Where is the customer base? I don't expect markets to be rational but I can't figure out how you can have national chains of stores making things that nobody can buy because nobody has any use for them, it'd be like me setting up the leaky bucket store for all your leaky bucket needs. I expect markets to do things badly but a brick and mortar, nationwide store chain that only sells clothing for a small fraction of the population seems financially impossible. I don't spend a lot of time in women's clothing stores but the ones I do see stock up to at least a UK 16 and that would be a bit on the restrictive side, a lot of them go up to 20. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 03:02
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I'm not an expert - I'm actually posting this stuff hoping experts will come in and explain it to me, because it's really interesting - but my impression is that we're in kind of a weird point in economic history in general, where investor cash is a lot more important than sales. You can suck at what you do, or sell it for vastly below break-even (Uber), and you're still a "success" because investors gotta invest. I guess I was thinking by "success" you meant "had a functioning business" not silicon valley "success". It's real weird to see that mindset get ported over to something as mundane as brick and mortar retail, though I suppose it illustrates how stupid it is. Also the scale of America and its wealth segregation probably makes that kind of targeted selling easier. sleep with the vicious posted:Is this retail collapse happening to a similar extent everywhere? Are the UK and Canada seeing similar waves of bankruptcy? The UK recently lost BHS which was a fashion/homeware retailer but that could honestly be because the guy in charge of it was a loving moron who walked out the door with a bunch of money rather than actually running it properly, there was a bit of a scandal about it. Also BHS sells old lady clothes and middle aged lady homewares. Not really a fashionable shop. Otherwise I don't think we really have much of a skinny people only clothing market, most stores carry 16 and some up to 20, and we've had an expansion of plus size clothing stores like very, simply be/jacamo etc. General retail I think a bunch of supermarkets are downsizing a bit and moving away from massive superstores and more towards smaller, more convenient, more spread out stores. I think TESCO was in a bit of bother a while back with it having so many different business arms. But the cheap and cheerful retailers seem to be doing better than the posher "middle class" trendy ones like Sainsburys. Everywhere is downsizing because the UK economy is in the toilet but I don't think anywhere major has folded yet, except stuff like record and electronics stores and stuff where the market has been completely wiped out by online. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 14:51
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Teen clothing? Not trying to sound dumb here but what is that? Was it a thing 10 years ago? I grew up in a lower middle-class and... aesthetically conservative family, and all I remember is jeans and t-shirts, with an occasional jacket for the colder months. Is teen fashion like that goth stuff they sell at Hot Topic or something? Do you live somewhere with a 6th form college? If so, all the people you see wandering around dressed very strange, those are teens, wearing teen clothing. Also if you still have your wardrobe from back then, you can look at it and realize that you also dressed very strange.
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Apr 12, 2017 23:41
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Shopping parks are often terribly positioned. Converting them to housing would be lovely housing with no transport access.
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Apr 24, 2017 14:41
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HEY NONG MAN posted:Westwood Village If they're in the middle of a residential district already that's a good thing, because it means that the people who live there have a place to shop without driving miles. They perhaps should not be as big as that for such a low density area, but the problem there is not that one block is not also low density residential.
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Apr 24, 2017 15:17
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Cicero posted:I'm kind of surprised they have a person do this instead of a conveyor belt or something. Seems like that'd be a way easier thing to automate than drone deliveries. Are you familiar with a company called Dahiir Insaat?
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Apr 25, 2017 16:19
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Cicero posted:No? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4qKt6Wr5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSgzH66oH28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQsNktD9zW4 C O N V E Y O R F U T U R E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zMOWg6Adok S A F E T Y B E D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NyTNOgttfE M E T A L G E A R OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Apr 25, 2017 |
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Apr 25, 2017 17:02
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Also it still serves to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few while denying agency to the majority of workers. That's bad also.
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Apr 25, 2017 21:30
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I was tempted to suggest "they get recycled as urbex youtube videos."
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Apr 27, 2017 01:03
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Bottomless pit of death seems like a pretty good USP.
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Apr 27, 2017 01:41
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Lol J. Crew isn't hipster. What is it about this specific word that's so slippery for goons? J. Crew is about the most establishment brand possible. Even when hipsters were a thing, which they haven't been for over ten years, their deal was thrift store clothes, not a brand that was literally cited in The Preppy Handbook. I always figured hipster was what you get when you throw a teenager into a charity shop and they walk out with whatever fit off the rails. Which is normal for teenagers. Except some people keep doing it into their thirties, along with their school hair gel. Then again I can't remember the last time I bought something that wasn't a replacement black shirt or pair of black trousers so I am the least qualified person alive make that call. It is kind of depressing that places you can go to look at clothes and try them on are on the out, I can't imagine trying to get clothes that fit off the internet. WampaLord posted:Yea I'm talking about the "3 purses on a blank wall" fake store bullshit. Actually I've seen a few shops like that, as well as the department store near me actively refusing to price anything in some of its sections, so you either have to ask or, I assume, are expected not to. I don't know how they stay in business but they do. I've never seen a whole floor of a mall devoted to it but we don't entirely do malls in the UK, I've only been to one that has the American layout. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:41 on May 2, 2017 |
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May 2, 2017 18:35
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It's true that there's the trend of weird beard, skinny jeans, and your granddad's glasses. Though growing up when baggy jeans and t shirts/tracksuit and sports jacket were the height of fashion it takes effort not to view it as a concerted effort to dress bizarrely, a lot of disparate elements that don't seem to have a coherent thematic basis like the fashions I grew up with. Probably part of why it gets overused, the thematic concept continues to escape me even if the trend does not.fishmech posted:Well I mean, there's always that one kind of store that's clearly a baby-sitting project for rich kids since their parents want them to "work" but don't want them doing real jobs. Those sorts of places don't really need to stay profitable or anything. Could be, though a lot of them seem to fold quite often, at least they often don't stay around long. I suppose I should say I don't know who keeps thinking it's a good idea to open them, rather than how they stay in business.
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May 2, 2017 18:55
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Hoity toity fashion makes me angry about capitalism. Like, more aggressively angry about it than normal.
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May 2, 2017 20:31
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ReidRansom posted:Go price a yacht A yacht is by design a silly expensive thing that does stupid expensive things. Clothing is stuff you put on to look nice, thermoregulate, and cover your vitals. There's a pretty quick limit on how well it can do any of those things and it's only proximally priced accordingly. At least if you showed me a stupid expensive yacht I could probably identify it as such.
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May 2, 2017 21:09
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If I pay $60k for a handbag it had better be a loving bag of holding.
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May 2, 2017 21:19
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I suppose it's just engaging with a desire, need, or positive feedback loop that is completely alien to me. Yes it's nice getting some good swag to show off to people sometimes but like, if you just forked over thousands of dollars for it then who the hell is going to think you're anything except a massive gullible idiot? The fun of fancy stuff is when you get it cheap, it's good fortune, and you have a genuine good quality item, if you can buy good quality items all the time then I don't understand it. I don't get what this high end retail is doing, why its customers buy things, what fulfillment they get out of it, how it fits into their social lives, it seems so utterly disconnected from my experience of consumption-as-leisure.
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May 2, 2017 22:31
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That seems an excessively simple explanation for such an apparently complex little microculture.
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May 2, 2017 22:34
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Relative cost is understandable but again, a ten bazillion dollar item is not going to be better than a thousand dollar item and is apparently far less convenient because you have to subscribe to the newsletter for a decade to get it. The culture is bizarre.
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May 2, 2017 22:48
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