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muscles like this! posted:The fact that it was a cheaply converted Sears was actually part of the plot. There's a scene late in the season set in the back of the church and it is full of retail fixtures they didn't bother to move out. It's one of the greatest little details of the show. It's always interesting how some buildings are never fully renovated when a new unrelated business moves in. There's a huge building in my neighborhood in Brooklyn that used to be a movie theater, complete with art-deco stonework on the front and everything. Now the space for the theaters is a Bounce U, the front of the building (lobby, etc) is an Asian supermarket, the offices are a CVS, and the basement is a gun range.
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Dec 9, 2020 15:05
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Empty Sandwich posted:the only reason I ever went into my local mall was to visit my favorite game store. here is a story about that. I think it's part of the failing business cycle. At first you're aggressive with price, but if that doesn't work you start raising them because fewer customers means you need more revenue from each one. Comcast seems to be doing that now. They were really aggressive with deals a few years ago, but people continued to leave and now the prices are trending higher. I guess Comcast figures if we're still putting up with their poo poo we don't have another option and, well...they're right. That strategy eventually fails because prices get so high there's room for another provider to squeeze in. In the gaming store example it's literally anywhere else that's not a Simon mall.
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Dec 9, 2020 18:35
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Krispy Wafer posted:I think it's part of the failing business cycle. At first you're aggressive with price, but if that doesn't work you start raising them because fewer customers means you need more revenue from each one. Comcast seems to be doing that now. They were really aggressive with deals a few years ago, but people continued to leave and now the prices are trending higher. I guess Comcast figures if we're still putting up with their poo poo we don't have another option and, well...they're right. That and "we have foot traffic that no one else has in the age of online sales, sure you can move to the strip mall, and then die a slow agonizing death" which is usually true except for specialty stores with dedicated customer bases and no actual competition for many miles. The walk in traffic is just gravy.
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Dec 9, 2020 18:45
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Volmarias posted:That and "we have foot traffic that no one else has in the age of online sales, sure you can move to the strip mall, and then die a slow agonizing death" which is usually true except for specialty stores with dedicated customer bases and no actual competition for many miles. The walk in traffic is just gravy. Yeah, foot traffic is probably a big one. Back in the 1980's and 90's a small independent business like that really benefited from being 'discovered' by people going to the mall for something else. Now you're getting word of mouth from people on the internet.
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Dec 9, 2020 18:54
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Pope Corky the IX posted:It's always interesting how some buildings are never fully renovated when a new unrelated business moves in. I grew up close to a little community mall that was anchored by a Zellers. For the Americans in the audience, they were like Canadian K-Mart. Maybe not as trashy as K-Mart, but they sold the orange-tag Levis if that tells you anything. (Also they were a subsidiary of Hudson's Bay Company, a corporation formed in the 1600s to exploit the fur trade, that pivoted in the 1900s to run department stores). Anyway, HBC sold off the entire Zellers chain about a decade ago, with most of them being turned into Targets for that company's disastrous expansion into Canada. The Zellers I grew up near got sold instead to Walmart, who moved all the shelves around but never redid the floor or the ceiling drop tiles or the front doors. I can still walk into that place and be taken back to shopping for my first pair of orange-tag Levis, or killing time playing the Star Wars Podracer demo with my brother, or...
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Dec 9, 2020 18:54
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Target's complete inability to sell things to Canadians will never stop amusing me. Like literally their inability to sell things. If I recall right, it was partly a logistics problem where they couldn't keep stores stocked with merch.
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Dec 9, 2020 21:27
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Krispy Wafer posted:Target's complete inability to sell things to Canadians will never stop amusing me. They also had higher prices than Target in the US, in places where people frequently drove to Target in the US to buy things. I get it, but, you've gotta think really hard about that one.
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Dec 10, 2020 02:12
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The other problem is that Walmart Canada doesn't have quite the same trashy vibe as it does in the US. No one was willing to pay more for Target when they didn't offer a noticeably different shopping experience, except the aforementioned empty shelves.
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Dec 11, 2020 13:09
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bowser posted:The other problem is that Walmart Canada doesn't have quite the same trashy vibe as it does in the US. No one was willing to pay more for Target when they didn't offer a noticeably different shopping experience, except the aforementioned empty shelves. I'm not sure Canada has as many People of Walmart as the good ol' US of A. Beachcomber has a new favorite as of 13:23 on Dec 11, 2020 |
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Dec 11, 2020 13:15
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Krispy Wafer posted:Target's complete inability to sell things to Canadians will never stop amusing me. The Sobeys warehouse I work at used to supply Target stores groceries in Atlantic Canada and it was a nightmare. When you have a bunch of stock on a shipping pallet, there are times where are mistakes or short of product requested. In 99% of cases, you just call in for credit for anything missing or wrong product and keep the pallet. Target Canada's policy was to refuse the WHOLE ORDER and not put anything on the shelfs . When Sobeys management called the Target Canada's management, Target told Sobeys that there were rumors that we were taking Target's house brands and stocking our Sobeys Stores with it (which is impossible) so they instructed their store receivers to refuse anything that was not perfect. Target also used Canada for their trail run of SAP, a logistics and inventory tracking program, which also causes so many inventory issues that they scraped their plans to use it in the US. It costed Sobeys serveral million dolllars and years to make SAP work for us, and Target spent more money and still failed.
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Dec 11, 2020 17:30
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bowser posted:The other problem is that Walmart Canada doesn't have quite the same trashy vibe as it does in the US. No one was willing to pay more for Target when they didn't offer a noticeably different shopping experience, except the aforementioned empty shelves. At least as of a few years ago, Walmart was considered fairly upmarket in Brazil because it's an American brand.
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Dec 11, 2020 17:43
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bowser posted:The other problem is that Walmart Canada doesn't have quite the same trashy vibe as it does in the US. No one was willing to pay more for Target when they didn't offer a noticeably different shopping experience, except the aforementioned empty shelves. I visited Walmart in Las Vegas last year on a business trip because my colleague needed some medication and reading glasses, and honestly it wasn't any trashier than any other hypermarket I have been, our own hypermarket chains included. This was probably one of the nicer ones, about 20 minute drive from The Strip?
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Dec 11, 2020 17:55
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I wandered into the one in New Orleans while I was walking around. the store was newly built and the biggest I've ever seen, which makes me wonder what the gently caress was there before. the store itself seemed fine, but the front bathrooms were permanently trashed... just they said "gently caress it" and put up caution tape. I think people were just winging trash into the unused rooms. the back bathrooms were fine, but I imagine plastered tourists don't think that far ahead. 
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Dec 11, 2020 18:08
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For what it's worth, the only time I've ever experienced an attempted mugging was in the Downtown Brooklyn Target, the one at Atlantic Terminal. It was two days after Christmas and I got the last Nintendo Switch. The loving idiot at the electronics counter loudly announced that they were sold out of Switches immediately after I left the counter, so someone ran at me and tried to grab the bag from my hand, and instead missed and stumbled for fifteen feet before running away. EDIT: This is supposed to be one of the nicest Targets in the city.
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Dec 11, 2020 18:36
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Der Kyhe posted:I visited Walmart in Las Vegas last year on a business trip because my colleague needed some medication and reading glasses, and honestly it wasn't any trashier than any other hypermarket I have been, our own hypermarket chains included. The full Walmarts vary a lot. The ones in nice neighborhoods are usually fine, with maybe a slightly lower-class clientele than surrounding stores but you'd really have to be looking out for it to notice it. The ones in not-so-nice neighborhoods are like a shopping safari. A good litmus test tends to be how many of shelves are behind locked cases to prevent shoplifting. If all the toys are behind locks, you'll probably see some interesting fellow shoppers in that particular store.
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Dec 11, 2020 20:41
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Wal-Mart has a lot of sins on its shoulders, but at the same time it gets a lot of undeserved flak for being the sole shopping destination of meth-smoking trailer park poor white trash. Target pretty much bases it's entire operation on that, as a matter of fact - it's just as much of an employee abusing retail hellhole as Wal-Mart, but it charges more because it has class and isn't for poors and other bougie bullshit. You want the real poor trash experience, try Dollar General or Family Dollar. Every time I walk in one of those, a blind kid starts playing the banjo and someone remarks about my purty mouth.
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Dec 11, 2020 21:30
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Knormal posted:You're talking about a full Walmart right, not a "Walmart Neighborhood Market"? The latter are just straight-up grocery stores. I have absolutely no idea, it might have been one of those. I bought a pair of jeans, and shorts and a shirt, but was bummed out that I could not play around with any guns beyond air rifles and such but that is a Nevada thing. And my colleague got his pills and the glasses so on our perspective, it was just one of the hypermarkets.
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Dec 11, 2020 21:43
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rndmnmbr posted:Wal-Mart has a lot of sins on its shoulders, but at the same time it gets a lot of undeserved flak for being the sole shopping destination of meth-smoking trailer park poor white trash. Target pretty much bases it's entire operation on that, as a matter of fact - it's just as much of an employee abusing retail hellhole as Wal-Mart, but it charges more because it has class and isn't for poors and other bougie bullshit. Dollar Generals are a land of contrast. On one hand they're the worst loving places to shop. On the other, they're the only stores within walking distance for a lot of poor people. There are tiny little towns in my state where if you have a Dollar General you're really going places. Because otherwise you're doing all your shopping at the gas station. And not even a good gas station like a QuikTrip.
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Dec 11, 2020 21:54
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The worst walmart I've been to is the one by my old apartment in which half the shelves are empty, everything is locked up, and there is bird poo poo everywhere because a legit colony of birds lives in it
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Dec 11, 2020 22:23
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We went to Walmart in Cabo to stock up on water and it was basically a mall with a lot of other stores attached. We had tried other stores first but after 3 super mercado that were just convenience stores we gave up. Also, I'm so glad we went to Cabo in February.
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Dec 11, 2020 22:28
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My favourite Walmart story is that they were driven out of Germany. They came in guns blazing, yeehawing over the supermarket landscape, and a few years later sold everything and hosed off. They picked fights with literally everyone; the law, their own employees, unions, customers, suppliers, civil society in general.
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Dec 11, 2020 22:59
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Der Kyhe posted:I visited Walmart in Las Vegas last year on a business trip because my colleague needed some medication and reading glasses, and honestly it wasn't any trashier than any other hypermarket I have been, our own hypermarket chains included. Walmart hasn't been a methed-up raccoon's nest posing as a retail outlet for some years now. It got to the point where the image of their stores was so bad it was hurting their profits, so they increased staff and raised wages a tiny bit to reduce turnover. There are probably still some terrible ones around here and there, but by-and-large they're just like any other big box store. It's probably just a matter of time, though until some up-and-comer executive convinces corporate they could save money by cutting back on labor costs, and it all goes back to poo poo again.
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Dec 11, 2020 23:08
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hawowanlawow posted:The worst walmart I've been to is the one by my old apartment in which half the shelves are empty, everything is locked up, and there is bird poo poo everywhere because a legit colony of birds lives in it If you ever want to see a real spectacle... go to the Wal-mart in Gallup, NM on the first weekend of the month. That's when +70k people come off the reservation to do all their monthly shopping. I've never seen a place so packed. They literally drop pallets of goods in the aisles wherever possible because the place is just packed to the walls. I only made that mistake a few times in the years I lived there and it was always a shitshow to get anything done that day.
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Dec 11, 2020 23:25
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there wolf posted:Walmart hasn't been a methed-up raccoon's nest posing as a retail outlet for some years now. It got to the point where the image of their stores was so bad it was hurting their profits, so they increased staff and raised wages a tiny bit to reduce turnover. There are probably still some terrible ones around here and there, but by-and-large they're just like any other big box store. It's probably just a matter of time, though until some up-and-comer executive convinces corporate they could save money by cutting back on labor costs, and it all goes back to poo poo again. Wal-Mart did clean up their stores and put in nice flooring and better organized the displays and sales went down. Turns out customers like crap in the aisles and bursting at the seams endcaps. It creates a perception they're saving money versus going someplace like Target. It is a nicer shopping experience than it used to be though. Someone finally figured out you could pay employees a bit more, reduce turnover, and save money in the long run. I'm sure they'll realize their mistake at some point and "fix the problem". My employer just boosted pay by up to $2/hour, which sounds great until you realize that means front-line associates in 2020 are making about what their predecessors made 20 years ago before retail became a race to the bottom. Antigravitas posted:My favourite Walmart story is that they were driven out of Germany. They came in guns blazing, yeehawing over the supermarket landscape, and a few years later sold everything and hosed off. I can't imagine going into Germany and trying to compete against Aldi and Lidl on their home turf.
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Dec 11, 2020 23:44
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bowser posted:The other problem is that Walmart Canada doesn't have quite the same trashy vibe as it does in the US. No one was willing to pay more for Target when they didn't offer a noticeably different shopping experience, except the aforementioned empty shelves. TBH, even knowing about how lovely Walmart is as a company, and also desiring to spend more of my money where it'll stay in Canada, I'd rather shop there than at Canadian Tire I'm hitting the point I'd rather go to London Drugs than Canadian Tire, and London Drugs are like a world out of time. Some of them still have photo labs that develop film.
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Dec 11, 2020 23:46
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there wolf posted:Walmart hasn't been a methed-up raccoon's nest posing as a retail outlet for some years now. It got to the point where the image of their stores was so bad it was hurting their profits, so they increased staff and raised wages a tiny bit to reduce turnover. There are probably still some terrible ones around here and there, but by-and-large they're just like any other big box store. It's probably just a matter of time, though until some up-and-comer executive convinces corporate they could save money by cutting back on labor costs, and it all goes back to poo poo again. They're doing this now at one I go to, coincidentally it just had to close cause of a COVID outbreak.
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Dec 11, 2020 23:47
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Krispy Wafer posted:
They didn't just get stomped by Lidl and Aldi, they really went out of their way to piss people off. Forbidding employees from having relationships (illegal), going full Stasi with informants supposed to snitch on coworkers, cultish morning chanting, forcing employees to smile at people, bagging, selling at prices below the price they bought at to drive smaller competitors out of business (pretty illegal), not working with unions, getting employees poached by Aldi and Lidl, selling products nobody wants in Germany, the list just goes on and on. Antigravitas has a new favorite as of 23:57 on Dec 11, 2020 |
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Dec 11, 2020 23:52
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Der Kyhe posted:I have absolutely no idea, it might have been one of those. On an unrelated note if you were in Vegas and couldn't find a place to play around with guns you must not have been looking very hard.
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Dec 12, 2020 02:13
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Antigravitas posted:They didn't just get stomped by Lidl and Aldi, they really went out of their way to piss people off. Forbidding employees from having relationships (illegal), going full Stasi with informants supposed to snitch on coworkers, cultish morning chanting, forcing employees to smile at people, bagging, selling at prices below the price they bought at to drive smaller competitors out of business (pretty illegal), not working with unions, getting employees poached by Aldi and Lidl, selling products nobody wants in Germany, the list just goes on and on. So, by American business as usual.
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Dec 12, 2020 02:37
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Antigravitas posted:they were driven out of Germany. It’s a very German story.
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Dec 12, 2020 04:22
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bowser posted:The other problem is that Walmart Canada doesn't have quite the same trashy vibe as it does in the US. No one was willing to pay more for Target when they didn't offer a noticeably different shopping experience, except the aforementioned empty shelves. Phy posted:TBH, even knowing about how lovely Walmart is as a company, and also desiring to spend more of my money where it'll stay in Canada, I'd rather shop there than at Canadian Tire
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Dec 12, 2020 05:02
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Oxphocker posted:If you ever want to see a real spectacle... go to the Wal-mart in Gallup, NM on the first weekend of the month. That's when +70k people come off the reservation to do all their monthly shopping. I've never seen a place so packed. They literally drop pallets of goods in the aisles wherever possible because the place is just packed to the walls. I only made that mistake a few times in the years I lived there and it was always a shitshow to get anything done that day. Haha yup, and actually its the weekends of the 1st and the 15th of the month, so you get to experience it twice if you're unfortunate. The first time I ever went to that Walmart was during one of those weekends because I had just moved to town and hadn't gotten the scoop on it quite yet. I've never seen a Walmart with every checker line open in my life before. Even then I ended up waiting close to an hour to check out. I once was coming out of that place on a Monday morning after one of those weekends and saw a double decker bus full of elderly German tourists getting off to go into the Walmart. I have no idea why they would do that but I'm sure the looks on their faces were priceless.
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Dec 12, 2020 05:09
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rndmnmbr posted:So, by American business as usual. I am laughing at the arrogance of Wal-Mart. They did no research, and thought their bullying tactics would cause the competition and government to roll over. Guess they have to bribe and lobby the German governemnt to get their anti-union rear end entrenched there.
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Dec 12, 2020 05:40
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wins.
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Really looking forward to some joyless Germans telling Musk to shove his gigafactory up his rear end because he refuses to label emergency exits or whatever dumb poo poo he's got going on.
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Dec 12, 2020 05:48
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Dollar Tree / Family Dollar is smart because they go in the smallest hick towns in America, places where Wal-Mart would never go. I work for a company that does payroll support for DT and whenever I work a ticket, I can see the users info and they almost always live in towns no one has ever heard of. Places like Kosciusko Mississippi, Jena Louisiana, and Tiffin Ohio. Dollar Tree operates what's basically a monopoly in places where major economic development is a new prison being built.
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Dec 12, 2020 05:56
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I've talked before in this thread about how Dollar General certainly has....a lot of issues, but they serve a purpose in that they are generally willing to enter areas that have otherwise long since been abandoned by any other place that sells groceries. The Free Hand of the Market didn't materialize all the competition it was apparently supposed to, otherwise.
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Dec 12, 2020 05:59
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AngryRobotsInc posted:I've talked before in this thread about how Dollar General certainly has....a lot of issues, but they serve a purpose in that they are generally willing to enter areas that have otherwise long since been abandoned by any other place that sells groceries. The Free Hand of the Market didn't materialize all the competition it was apparently supposed to, otherwise. Very true. Our little town of 800-900 is so excited about the Dollar General that popped up. We used to have a full grocery store in town, but when the owner died, the kids fought over it and it basically was destroyed from within. Eventually a much nicer grocery store was opened seven miles away, and the one in town basically became a crappy quick stop gas station with very limited selection. So when DG opened, people are happy that they don't have to travel seven miles just to get bread/milk/cokes and other random assorted goods. The closest Wal-Marts are 25-35 miles away. I can think of at least four Dollar Generals and Family Dollars that are closer than the Wal-Mart.
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Dec 12, 2020 07:49
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Silly Burrito posted:Very true. Our little town of 800-900 is so excited about the Dollar General that popped up. We used to have a full grocery store in town, but when the owner died, the kids fought over it and it basically was destroyed from within. Eventually a much nicer grocery store was opened seven miles away, and the one in town basically became a crappy quick stop gas station with very limited selection. So when DG opened, people are happy that they don't have to travel seven miles just to get bread/milk/cokes and other random assorted goods. The closest Wal-Marts are 25-35 miles away. I can think of at least four Dollar Generals and Family Dollars that are closer than the Wal-Mart. Yeah. There's a smallish town (about 2000 people) not far from where I live that for a while has had to have emergency bus service provided by the county to a nearby only slightly larger town about 10 miles away, because their last grocery store closed in the early 2000s. It wasn't until later that anything opened up there, and surprise, it was a Dollar General. The bus service still runs because Dollar General makes life somewhat easier, but the closest full grocery stores are still out of reach for many there.
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Dec 12, 2020 08:26
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FilthyImp posted:Really looking forward to some joyless Germans telling Musk to shove his gigafactory up his rear end because he refuses to label emergency exits or whatever dumb poo poo he's got going on. Industry is IG Metall territory. That's the union with the most confidence and influence in Germany. Now, unions in Germany are used to a cooperative relationship with companies. Afaik IG Metall approached Tesla already but were ignored. I don't know if Tesla knows this yet, but they can't prevent their labour from organising, and at their size they will likely have to allow at least one employee to spend time on worker council business. Without reducing their pay. IG Metall does not gently caress around, so that's going to be fun to watch.
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Dec 12, 2020 12:37
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FilthyImp posted:Really looking forward to some joyless Germans telling Musk to shove his gigafactory up his rear end because he refuses to label emergency exits or whatever dumb poo poo he's got going on. And before someone goes "They wouldn't do that to a giant company", go look up German WallMart, look how it went for them. The Germans don't give a poo poo about who and what you are, you will follow the rules!
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