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There is one (e: a Kmart) like 3 minutes from my house (Gainesville, FL) and I don't understand why anyone goes in there. I see cars in the parking lot constantly, but the few times I've actually walked in the store I get really depressed and leave after like 5 minutes. poo poo is sad. There's usually an entire back corner of the drat store with no lights on and nobody seems to give a gently caress
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Aug 24, 2017 15:11
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kumba posted:There is one (e: a Kmart) like 3 minutes from my house (Gainesville, FL) and I don't understand why anyone goes in there. I see cars in the parking lot constantly, but the few times I've actually walked in the store I get really depressed and leave after like 5 minutes. poo poo is sad. There's usually an entire back corner of the drat store with no lights on and nobody seems to give a gently caress Meanwhile, Gainesville has like 3 Walmarts that are doing just fine.
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Aug 24, 2017 15:39
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Randaconda posted:Meanwhile, Gainesville has like 3 Walmarts that are doing just fine. And all 3 of them are Super Walmarts at that! But none of those are on this side of town, so I guess that's the draw
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Aug 24, 2017 15:43
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The people who ran Kmart years ago basically stopped trying at some point because I have never seen a Kmart that looks like it has been updated since the early 1980s
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Aug 24, 2017 17:25
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I once "reserved" a 2DS for in-store pickup from a Kmart when I was out shopping and poo poo. 2 hours later I go to pick it up and find that it never made it to their reservation system (hence, no 'Pick your poo poo up!' Email). So i just grabbed one off the shelf and paid for it at the till. 2 days later I get an email saying my item is ready for pickup. 
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Aug 24, 2017 20:09
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Not surprising. Can you imagine actually working at K-Mart?
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Aug 25, 2017 18:23
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Inescapable Duck posted:Not surprising. Can you imagine actually working at K-Mart? 
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Aug 26, 2017 06:14
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There is a travel agency down the street from my neighborhood that has been in business at the same location for at least 20 years. It's a pretty nice piece of real estate they are on, the rent must be expensive. They have one of those sign's out front that you write with the letters yourself, and they're always advertising Costa Rica and Puerto Rico trips. How the hell are they still in business in 2017? Who is going to pay out travel agent fees on top of booking fees when you can do the whole process yourself for far cheaper online?
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Aug 27, 2017 05:27
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Dennis McClaren posted:There is a travel agency down the street from my neighborhood that has been in business at the same location for at least 20 years. It's a pretty nice piece of real estate they are on, the rent must be expensive. They have one of those sign's out front that you write with the letters yourself, and they're always advertising Costa Rica and Puerto Rico trips. Really old people and the exceptionally stubborn?
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Aug 27, 2017 05:29
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Sic Semper Goon posted:Really old people and the exceptionally stubborn? And the terminally lazy. FilthyImp posted:Actually, now that you mention it, when I went back the following week there was nothing there... I was picturing more day drinking on the job. I assume no one else cares/everyone else is even drunker. Just re-enact Drunk Bakers every day.
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Aug 27, 2017 05:57
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Dennis McClaren posted:There is a travel agency down the street from my neighborhood that has been in business at the same location for at least 20 years. It's a pretty nice piece of real estate they are on, the rent must be expensive. They have one of those sign's out front that you write with the letters yourself, and they're always advertising Costa Rica and Puerto Rico trips. Companies or organizations large enough to have frequent or complex travel requirements but too small to have their own dedicated travel coordinator, probably. And people whose time is worth more to them than their money.
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Aug 27, 2017 07:22
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So this past weekend I've seen two commercials for Sears Labor Day sales. Is this an "everything's fine, no need to worry PLEASE GIVE US YOUR MONEY" cover? Because I don't think I've seen an actual Sears commercial in at least a couple of years. For reference, one commercial is for appliances (makes sense, they're still Sears big sellers), and the other commercial is for clothing (HAHAHAHANOPE).
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Aug 27, 2017 14:50
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ReidRansom posted:Companies or organizations large enough to have frequent or complex travel requirements but too small to have their own dedicated travel coordinator, probably. And people whose time is worth more to them than their money. Complicated itineraries can be worth using a travel agent too, especially for those who don't travel regularly. There's definitely less need for travel agents these days, but they still have their uses in the right scenario.
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Aug 27, 2017 20:16
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For what it's worth, i bought a washer+dryer set from Sears this last Black Friday. Cheapest by far (even with the pedestal washer attachment). And when I didnt have the new hoses for the install team, Sears sent another installer the week after I got new hoses. The last time I actually walked into a sears was pretty depressing, but their appliance sales are solid.
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Aug 27, 2017 23:35
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effervescible posted:Complicated itineraries can be worth using a travel agent too, especially for those who don't travel regularly. There's definitely less need for travel agents these days, but they still have their uses in the right scenario. I booked a trip with a travel agent once. I was with a group of 7-8 guys and didn't feel like worrying about adjoining rooms, complex flight itineraries (we weren't going far, but some guys had to come a day late or whatever), or fronting everything and then handling money from a bunch of people. She handled everything for a price comparable to using Expedia, the trip went off without a hitch, and her fee was $35. Money well spent, I figure.
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Aug 28, 2017 04:56
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Honeymoons and such, too, I suppose. Planning a wedding blows so throwing all the honeymoon details on a travel agent or something is one less thing to worry about. Niche and Costco probably does it better but still.
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Aug 28, 2017 05:17
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K-Mart/Sears is a popular topic in this thread, and it makes sense because it's definitely going down the drain. But I think it'll be around for a couple more years yet. It seems to me like their CEO is being very deliberate with how he's running things. He's content to let stores close, infuse the company with more of his hedge fund's money, and repeat the process. When it benefits him the most to finally pull the trigger on Sears, that's when it'll die. And I don't see that happening so quickly. It's the same reason why I think the supposedly inevitable stock market downturn isn't gonna happen for a while, if at all. The people who have the most to lose, by far, are the richest people that are using it to slosh around their gross amounts of wealth without giving any of it back. A downturn will gently caress over public pensions and small retirement accounts too, but I somehow doubt they're the things causing record highs. When it suits the wealthiest to burn it all down, that's when I think it'll happen and not a second before. I hope I'm just being paranoid.
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Aug 28, 2017 05:46
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get that OUT of my face posted:K-Mart/Sears is a popular topic in this thread, and it makes sense because it's definitely going down the drain. But I think it'll be around for a couple more years yet. It seems to me like their CEO is being very deliberate with how he's running things. He's content to let stores close, infuse the company with more of his hedge fund's money, and repeat the process. When it benefits him the most to finally pull the trigger on Sears, that's when it'll die. And I don't see that happening so quickly. You're being paranoid. A huge percentage of shares (maybe most, not sure) are held by institutional investors and not individuals. And many of those institutional investors are public pensions with massive amounts of money to invest. Retirement accounts are bundled in with all those big investors as well. Part of the perfect storm that was 2007 was caused by rating agencies giving AAA's to anything with a pulse. A lot of institutional investors have rules against investing in anything below an A rating, but because of grade inflation they had way too much money tied up in really bad bets. That probably won't happen again for awhile. The incredible destruction of wealth that happened in the last recession isn't normal. You usually don't see retirement and pension plans hit that hard. We are primed for a downturn though. I think this is the 3rd longest economic expansion ever and will become the 2nd longest in early 2018. The only way there won't be a Trump recession is if he quits early.
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Aug 28, 2017 12:45
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I don't think it's a question of paranoia as much as I think you're ascribing far too much rationality to the markets. Markets have as much to do with psychology as they do economics, since it's all fundamentally just numbers in computers and lots of prognostication. They don't call them Panics and Manias for nothing.
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Aug 28, 2017 13:55
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ReidRansom posted:Companies or organizations large enough to have frequent or complex travel requirements but too small to have their own dedicated travel coordinator, probably. And people whose time is worth more to them than their money. I worked for a rather big place a few years back where travel was frequent. They just made me use Expedia and Enterprise, then reimburse me after I got back.
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Aug 28, 2017 14:02
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get that OUT of my face posted:The people who have the most to lose, by far, are the richest people that are using it to slosh around their gross amounts of wealth without giving any of it back. A downturn will gently caress over public pensions and small retirement accounts too, but I somehow doubt they're the things causing record highs. When it suits the wealthiest to burn it all down, that's when I think it'll happen and not a second before. Don't want to cause a derail, but is it still the case that the banks can borrow money from the Federal Reserve at 0.25%? I figured that was why the market keeps going up. It's basically free money.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:39
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Shroud posted:Don't want to cause a derail, but is it still the case that the banks can borrow money from the Federal Reserve at 0.25%? I figured that was why the market keeps going up. It's basically free money. It’s like 1.25% at this point I think.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:54
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Krispy Kareem posted:Part of the perfect storm that was 2007 was caused by rating agencies giving AAA's to anything with a pulse. A lot of institutional investors have rules against investing in anything below an A rating, but because of grade inflation they had way too much money tied up in really bad bets. That probably won't happen again for awhile. The incredible destruction of wealth that happened in the last recession isn't normal. You usually don't see retirement and pension plans hit that hard. Part of the problem was also the Federal government pressuring their lending institutions to give out AAA housing loans to so many people that could never afford the houses for which they were borrowing. When all those rampant foreclosures happened a lot of people ended up homeless and the banks involved were stuck with a bunch of expensive houses that no one could afford and so had no way to regain all the money that was spent. It was a perfect shitstorm of incompetence and greed.
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Aug 28, 2017 18:12
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How Rude posted:Part of the problem was also the Federal government pressuring their lending institutions to give out AAA housing loans to so many people that could never afford the houses for which they were borrowing. When all those rampant foreclosures happened a lot of people ended up homeless and the banks involved were stuck with a bunch of expensive houses that no one could afford and so had no way to regain all the money that was spent. It was a perfect shitstorm of incompetence and greed. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I think the housing market, on average represents about 4% of GDP. The biggest housing bubble ever that brought down huge and venerable institutions, nationalized the auto industry and banks, and almost even bankrupted GE took that 4% number to...6% of GDP. It was a 50% increase, but still a surprisingly small part of the economy to have such a widespread impact globally. For comparison, healthcare is about 18%. So if that turns out to be a bubble...
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Aug 28, 2017 19:36
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How Rude posted:Part of the problem was also the Federal government pressuring their lending institutions to give out AAA housing loans to so many people that could never afford the houses for which they were borrowing. When all those rampant foreclosures happened a lot of people ended up homeless and the banks involved were stuck with a bunch of expensive houses that no one could afford and so had no way to regain all the money that was spent. It was a perfect shitstorm of incompetence and greed. -Nobody was pressuring the lenders to give out mortgages. Lenders issued as many mortgages (especially subprime, i.e. not AAA) as they could because they could take their fees, turn around and sell them off to the secondary market. -The ratings agencies WERE complicit in giving the upper tranche of securitized loans AAA ratings. Either they did it and took a fee or one of the other two companies would. There was some rationale with historical data where prices didn't fall very often and people usually paid their mortgages, but that looks pretty silly when you look how overpriced houses were and how expensive those mortgages were going to be and how poorly underwritten they were. The ~20% fall in housing prices and people not paying their mortgages when their rates went up wiped out institutions because it pulled the rug out from under the gigantic financialization layers (MBSs and CDOs) piled on top.
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Aug 28, 2017 21:22
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pangstrom posted:-The ratings agencies WERE complicit in giving the upper tranche of securitized loans AAA ratings. Either they did it and took a fee or one of the other two companies would. There was some rationale with historical data where prices didn't fall very often and people usually paid their mortgages, but that looks pretty silly when you look how overpriced houses were and how expensive those mortgages were going to be and how poorly underwritten they were. My dad works in insurance and has lots of friends in the investment business. One of them has a story about talking to some company about their real estate investment offerings circa 2005-2006 and the product rep was showing off a fancy chart of projected returns based on various growth scenarios for property values. Dad's friend asked the product rep what their models said would happen if property values went down. Product rep gives him a funny look and says "we don't have any models for property values going down." That was about the point dad's friend decided to start trying to steer people away from any investments based on real estate.
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Aug 28, 2017 21:32
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http://fortune.com/2017/08/25/gamestop-stock/ posted:Shares of video game retailer GameStop dropped nearly 13% after it reported second-quarter earnings on Thursday, recovering only slightly in Friday trading. That harsh response came despite mixed results: The company reported $1.69 billion in revenue, beating projections of $1.64 billion, but only 15 cents per share in earnings against Wall Street targets of 16 cents.
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Aug 29, 2017 00:16
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Best Buy and Amazon are gonna pick their bones.
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Aug 29, 2017 01:08
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More and more of the EB Games (Australia's Gamestop branch) around here are almost fully half game merchandise and toys. (though physical sales are still going strong here since so many people still have crap internet. Mine certainly hasn't been cooperative today) I think they've started their own ThinkGeek dedicated merchandise store which shares space with the downtown one. A little ironic given I recall in my old home town the local Toyworld was one of the main places selling video games, though they eventually phased that out when bigger stores started opening up. (which in turn started phasing out games sales after EB Games showed up) I think Amiibos and the increasing amounts of official video game merchandise might have given the game stores a new lease on life, or at least prolonged them. Well, in places where Amiibos aren't shortstocked and impossible to find.
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Aug 29, 2017 09:37
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People joke about how little EB Games gives you for trade in, and I guess it's very underwhelming for pretty new full price games. But I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I got for trading in my older Wii and Xbox 360 stuff. I don't remember amounts exactly but the Wii games were a surprise. What I got for Mario Kart Wii and Mario Brothers Wii was about half of what I got for trading in an extra new copy of Horizon on PS4. The trade in on Fable Anniversary remaster, Bully remaster, Skate 2 and the Orange Box for Xbox360 were about the same as Farcry 4 for the PS4. I came away with about 2.5x as much as I thought I'd be getting. Still nowhere near what I would get selling privately on Gumtree, but gently caress that. They take a percentage if you exchange for cash, but not for store credit that you immediately use to buy PSN cards. Surely they don't make much margin on those.
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Aug 29, 2017 10:35
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I'm a little amazed the Games & Gadgets I use to visit in the 1980's became Electronics Boutique and is now EB Games & Gamestop. Their business model may have flaws, but that's some pretty impressive staying power and adaptability.
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Aug 29, 2017 13:31
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Gamestop's days are numbered. The next console generation will probably be digital only. Their BS about selling phones or whatever is just delaying the inevitable.
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Aug 29, 2017 13:59
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FlamingLiberal posted:Gamestop's days are numbered. The next console generation will probably be digital only. Their BS about selling phones or whatever is just delaying the inevitable. Um, excuse me, it's a "diversification journey". Yeah they're screwed.
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Aug 29, 2017 14:31
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FlamingLiberal posted:The next console generation will probably be digital only. No it won't.
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Aug 29, 2017 14:47
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Krispy Kareem posted:I'm a little amazed the Games & Gadgets I use to visit in the 1980's became Electronics Boutique and is now EB Games & Gamestop. The Seattle area had Funcoland, which would also trade in old systems, I would get all kinds of old NES games there. The common ones like Kung-Fu only cost a couple bucks. Then Gamestop ate them, and it was a sad day.
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Aug 29, 2017 14:51
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My local store that Gamestop ate was called Babbage's. After the historical dude that made the first computer or some such. Anyways, I also think the market plan first started by Skylanders and now dominated by Amiibos and Lego Dimensions, where you need to buy physical components for your video games is going to hold strong for some time. Kids eat that stuff up, and I've noticed the electronics sections of stores slowly getting bigger and bigger sections devoted to that kind of toy.
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Aug 29, 2017 14:57
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I remember Babbage's, they were all over the place around here. We had a mall that had both a Babbage's and an EB that both turned into Gamestop a few months apart
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Aug 29, 2017 15:06
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FlamingLiberal posted:Gamestop's days are numbered. The next console generation will probably be digital only. Their BS about selling phones or whatever is just delaying the inevitable. The Gamestop where I live have a couple of bins of used games, and 95% of the store is Hot Topic and Thinkgeek stuff. You could remove all the video games and consoles from the store, and you wouldn't notice a difference.
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Aug 29, 2017 15:30
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evobatman posted:The Gamestop where I live have a couple of bins of used games, and 95% of the store is Hot Topic and Thinkgeek stuff. You could remove all the video games and consoles from the store, and you wouldn't notice a difference. what?
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Aug 29, 2017 15:39
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Slanderer posted:what? Hot Topic is 90% nerdy blind box tat and Funko Pops these days.
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Aug 29, 2017 15:45
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