
Payless is closing all its U.S. stores - malshe
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/business/payless-closing-stores-bankrupt/index.html
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da_chicken
Unsurprising. Not because of the state of retail, but because they were
purchased in 2012 by an investment firm (Blum Capital) and a private equity
group (Golden Gate) that's known for leveraged buyouts. They closed their
Australian stores in 2016, and now they're doing the same to the rest of their
stores. They've slowly been dividing the assets up and carving/dividing the
corpse up to squeeze blood from the stone.

I'll leave it up to someone smarter than I am to tell exactly how much of this
was corporate raiding and how much was actually unsustainable business.

~~~
pbreit
Yup, blaming this on “the age of Amazon” is a mistake. Same with toys r us and
Sears: crushing debt from private equity with no retail competence.

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drilldrive
The market for Toys-R-Us is absolutely still there, and currently there is a
vacuum for a better company to step in place. People are simply not going to
buy their children's items online; moms just love to try things out in the
store for their kids.

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rdtsc
We've driven many times by the now closed Toys-R-Us store and lamented how we
can't go and pick out toys there anymore.

Stores like Target have a toys section and it helps to some extent but the
selection is just not there.

Also another thing Amazon can't do is last minute gift shopping for the
numerous birthday parties kids seem to be invited to.

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toomuchtodo
Parent life pro tip. Purchase an assortment of toys on clearance and keep them
around for emergency party invites.

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pkaye
And you can also buy gift wrap and greeting cards at dollar stores. There is
not much difference except for the limited selection.

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carlivar
Gift wrap is something I've learned over time not to cheap out on. Wrapping a
present with cheap paper is frustrating. It rips far too easily. The task with
quality paper is night and day. Worth a few more bucks per roll if you ask me.

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creddit
Wow. As a kid, I always went to Payless for my "dress" shoes up until _maybe_
high school. Going to private Catholic school I always needed new "dress"
shoes each year and it was a bit ritualistic for me to go to Payless before
the new school year to get a new pair. I believe I also got a lot of my casual
sneakers there when I was younger as well.

~~~
tenpies
Clothing is surprisingly easy once you've settled your sizes for that brand.
Add free return shipping and it's almost more logical to order online since
you save the time of going to the store and physically finding the item (which
may not even be in stock in your size).

I also like that it is much easier to use coupons online than in person, not
to mention the extra percent or so off from using affiliate links.

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russellbeattie
I have a hard time understanding the future macro-economy of the U.S. Where
does the money come from and where does it go? We've all seen towns and cities
decimated when the factories close or shrink because the thing that's buying
raw materials, adding value, and selling it for a profit to generate revenue
which is used to pay its workers, taxes, etc. is no longer there. A whole
generation or two then moved to becoming simply middle-men, where goods were
made somewhere else, marked up to pay rent and employees, and then sold. Now
that model is going away as markets become more efficient and Walmart, Dollar
General and Amazon (my employer for transparency, though I don't work for the
store side) cut out the middle man. Where do 245 million American adults go
next to make a living? When robots are driving all the trucks, picking all the
fruit, and making most of the goods (all will come to pass within the next
50-100 years), and stores become more about shipping than shopping, where do
people work?

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Eric_WVGG
Well that’s the argument for Universal Basic Income in a nutshell.

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rb808
Its amazing to me how many shops I walk past are completely empty these days.
I don't know how they can afford to keep the lights on, let alone stock the
place.

I myself swore I'd never buy clothes and shoes online, but have started doing
this too. Its so much easier and cheaper.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" I myself swore I'd never buy clothes and shoes online, but have started
doing this too. Its so much easier and cheaper."_

The main reason I don't buy shoes online is because it's so difficult to find
a good fit.

In a store I can easily and quickly try on a whole bunch of shoes, and if none
of them fit or I don't like them, all I do is just walk out of the store.

With online shoe purchases, I have to not only wait for delivery but then if
they don't fit I have to send them back. Also, I've heard of Amazon closing
people's accounts when they made too many returns, so even though Amazon has a
great return policy, I am wary of trying on and returning too many shoes. I'd
just rather shop in a brick and mortar store when none of this is an issue.

As for Payless, I love them. I could find much cheaper shoes there than
anywhere else in my area, and I had no complaints about the quality of the
shoes I bought. Their closure means I'll have to pay more for shoes, which is
something I can ill afford to do.

~~~
throw_away2
Not to shill, but with Amazon Wardrobe, they explicitly expect you to send
some of the products back. The other differences are that you are not billed
until you decide what to keep and (to me, the biggest innovation), they use a
box that is perforated with peel-and-stick strips for you to use to mail back
and also include a pre-printed return label.

That last one is huge for me because the local UPS store got wise to Amazon
returns and now charges $1.50 for the first printout, but only if you email
them, which neatly captures everyone who needs to print a return label, but
doesn't have a printer of their own.

I recently lost a lot of weight and so I wasn't sure what size I was for a lot
of items. So I just ordered a couple different sizes and sent back the ones
that didn't fit. Such a better experience than trying to find multiple sizes
of the same thing in a store, then going to the dressing room where everything
is counted because I'm assumed to be a criminal.

Biggest down side is that they use their very lowest priority and slowest
shipping for it. But for me, clothes are rarely urgent.

~~~
tomjen3
If you are buying mens clothing, the sizes are actually the relevant
measurements in inches, so getting the right size is not that hard (you may
only need to order two sizes).

But I completely agree with you about retail treating me like a criminal:
nobody has counted things going into the dressing room yet, but it is getting
more and more difficult to be allowed to leave the stores without purchase
anymore.

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smaili
Another one to add to the list -KB Toys, Sears, Kmart, Blockbuster, Montgomery
Wards, Circuit City. Thanks for the memories.

~~~
dredmorbius
Weird Stuff.

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purplezooey
Most of our tired strip malls across the US should be demolished for housing.

~~~
bsder
Most of them aren't worth it. If a mall is failing, it probably exists in an
area that is failing as well.

Malls with primarily upper middle class consumers and up are doing quite well.

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antisthenes
Just as a random tid-bit, I take walks after lunch through a shopping plaza.

There was a Payless store that opened around 2016 and stayed open for less
than a year until being closed. Not sure what that was about. Guess it was
never doing that well.

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olliej
To clarify - Payless is putting more people out work than the entire coal
mining industry in the US. But don’t worry the government is supporting the
miners. And subsidizing their employers.

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stri8ed
> Payless is putting more people out work than the entire coal mining industry
> in the US

Source?

~~~
sndean
Not the OP, but maybe these numbers?

18000 Payless employees in 2017 [1]

~50000 in mining industry [2], ~10000 in _extraction_ [3] in 2017.

So it's probably not true that it's more than the entire coal mining industry.
But, more than the number of actual coal miners? Possibly.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_ShoeSource](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_ShoeSource)

[2]
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/2017/may/naics4_212100.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/2017/may/naics4_212100.htm)

[3]
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/2017/may/naics4_212100.htm#47-0000](https://www.bls.gov/oes/2017/may/naics4_212100.htm#47-0000)

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Simulacra
I thought they ALREADY closed. wow.

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ipnon
I think it's premature to lament the loss of 18k ultimately low quality jobs.
The trend of retail giants going out of business means that commercial real
estate gets cheaper.

For most people starting a business means opening a storefront.

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fucking_tragedy
It takes years for retail space to be renovated or converted. Meanwhile,
people who are now out of a job will need to eat until then.

