Imagine the malls lose their anchor stores, what will they look like without them and who will go there?:

Macy's (M, -13.19%) shopper exodus continues.

The retailer's stock fell sharply on Thursday morning after the department store operator reported another batch of dismal results that suggested it is not succeeding in keeping current customers, let alone recruiting new ones.

The company reported a 5.2% drop in comparable sales for the first quarter, the 8th such period of decline in a row, and a bigger drop than in recent quarters. While Macy's had told analysts in February to expect sales to drop in 2017, the decline was deeper than the 3.1% decline Wall Street was expecting, according to Consensus Metrix. And the retailer's profit plunged 39%.

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

I buy everything I can online because going to the mall is the worst. I pretty much only go if I need to shop for clothes and it seems like half the time they don't have my size or color in stock and they offer to order it online for you. If you know what size you wear for a particular retailer I'd rather wait for a sale and buy online.

This just in....


"Sears Holdings (SHLD, -1.89%) on Friday announced a new round of store closings, this one involving 43 locations. The company framed the move as a strategic decision, one that will aid in its hoped-for return to profitability."

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Target will be next to hop on this bandwagon. I'm sure there will be other big box retailers as well. None of the retailers are really "fighting" if you will to keep stores open... and that's because they can't. They're all cash poor. What you're going to see is a lag of 6-18 months between this wave of store closings and REIT bankruptcies. The losses from those bankruptcies will then carry over into banks, pensions, etc. Pensions are really screwed. I'm thinking of a big box portfolio CALPERS bought about a year ago... sheesh they're going to take a bath on that.

I order my groceries online from a store that is quite literally 200m from my doorstep. I browse the flyer, sit in front of my fridge with the laptop and make my order while having my morning coffee. Order shows up in the early afternoon. It's fucking awesome. No lines, no parking issues, and even being so close to the store, we feel it's worth it. Saves us roughly 30-45 min of time on a Saturday.

I also like the fact that I know the store has great quality produce, meat, etc. You can add notes to items like "no green bananas", "fish fillet cut in to so many pieces" etc. I would not order from somewhere like Amazon or Walmart where you really don't know where your meat or produce is coming from.

---

Long Chile was a silly place.

I think one of the ways shopping will change with Amazon is you will know exactly where your produce and meat is coming from, and even more detail if wanted. They are going to make shopping as personal as possible using the data they collect from us. I'd be surprised if we don't get personal virtual shoppers that "teach" us about products we aren't aware of or enhance our knowledge about products we already purchase. Maybe you get a suggestion/coupon to try similar cuts of meat from two different brands of cows with similar marbling. Both grass fed but from different parts of the country. The possibilities are endless, kind of like choosing olive oil.

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

That's the interesting thing about these people keep acting like they're going to get junk food from Amazon or ordering online. Amazon does screw up every once in awhile, but they also fix things easier than any company I have seen. If you get 5 bad apples or junk meat. They'll probabaly have replacements to your door in a couple hours and the qc review why it happened.

Their big data program annihilates everyone else's. Any growing pain issues with food will be alleviated pretty darn quick, it's just what they do.

Online shopping for groceries has been a challenge, big companies have been trying to make this a reality for a while now. Food is one of those things that most people like to touch and feel see before purchasing. Searching for the perfect tomato, peaches that are not too soft or hard, meat that looks fresh. Buying soap and canned food online is one thing most still prefer to shop for their own fresh items. We do have a 2 full time event planning and personal shopping associates in my store that take orders and deliver. If I didn't live 30 miles from my location I would probably use them to shop for me.

Down goes another:

After fielding takeover offers, teen clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF, -21.01%) said on Monday it is no longer up for sale, and will instead focus on fixing the long ailing business itself.

The news sent Abercrombie shares plummeting 10% in premarket trading, bringing its market value down to about $740 million.

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

A surprise closing of 61 bridal shops leaving tons of uncertainty
http://www.npr.org/...elo-stores-close-abr

Damn. I pity those brides.

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Just think about opening a box (after work) of cod after baking in the Texas sun for day. Yum

Down goes Toys R Us:


"The toy giant might file for Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Va., sometime before then -- and as soon as the next several weeks -- according to the Wall Street Journal."

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

I don't think they annihilate Walmart. That said, the details of those programs are some of the most closely-held trade secrets in the world. But Walmart was doing "big data" before Amazon really existed. Neither will Walmart go down without a colossal fight. With massive stores (read 'warehouses') within 10 miles of 90% of Americans they're going to be really well positioned to deliver quickly. They already have pilot programs.

Papers have circulated within the FRB theorizing that the "the real time price matching" practices of retailers has permanently suppressed inflation. It's a curious problem for monetary authorities to have.

My wife had a bridal shop until 2013. It was like the spigot slammed shut.
Brides expect to come in, try on dresses, get their measurements for free, and then order a knockoff on line.

My wife said when the Chinese knockoffs finally got close in quality, she knew it was time to close.

I find it interesting that Amazon bought Whole Foods to get into the brick and mortar side of the grocery business.

I also find it strange that Amazon is now opening brick and mortar book stores. What have they figured out that existing retailers are missing?

There's more to come. You'll see some major REITs go down by the middle of next year. It's a perfect storm for them honestly: most of them are leveraged to the hilt, most of that debt is coming due over a two year period starting around the beginning of this year, interest rates are rising, rents, occupancy, and recapture is falling, and occupancy costs ex rent are rising!

Basically, most of the REITs are f****d! The exception to this is anyone operating small service-rich strips.

Based on what I've seen of the Santana Row Amazon store- it seems like target rich impulse buying- or bored spending. It's in an incredibly wealthy area with lots of bored business travelers. There is some interesting data related merchandizing - shelves that say if you like this book- try these other books that people who liked the first book also rate highly. Almost everyone who went in did it just to see how it worked. But it seems almost like an airport bookstore. There's times you just need to kill time. (This is based on a co-worker's pictures- I have not gone myself).

The Whole Foods one really interests me as a Plated customer. I would prefer to swing by Whole Foods once a week to pick up a box than have it sit on my porch all day and get stuck in snowstorms. I love not having leftover food from making stuff- just the perfect amount. Less packaging would also be great. The prepared boxed meals like Plated have been disrupting high end groceries. Whole Foods recently took out a new trademark related to this. Arugula that got stuck on a truck in a snowstorm is gross to have to throw out.

http://www.zdnet.com/...y-up-on-omnichannel/

Kohl's will now pack and ship Amazon returns for free.
Whole Foods is going to do similar.

As a bad returner who tends to buy from BBY/Walmart etc when I might return- this changes the dynamics...

So what you area saying is the federal reserve basically giving away money for free for the last 10 years is coming back to haunt them?

The Fed has a limited and crude set of tools. In the absence of appropriate fiscal policy, their choices were to either flood the world with money or watch it burn.

Time to turn off the lights at Sears:

Shoppers will no longer be able to buy Whirlpool, KitchenAid or Maytag appliances at Sears, following a pricing dispute that has ended a 101-year relationship between the department store chain and the country’s largest appliance maker.
Whirlpool, which announced this week that it is raising prices to make up for costlier raw materials, said it notified Sears Holdings in May that it would stop supplying appliances to the retailer.

“We simply could not reach terms that were acceptable to both parties,” Marc Bitzer, Whirlpool’s chief executive, said on a Tuesday call with investors.

The news deals yet another blow to Sears, which has already closed hundreds of stores this year. Once a dominant seller of appliances, the company has lost much of its cachet and market share in recent years. It has not turned a profit since 2010, and last year it reported a loss of $2.22 billion.

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

That's a shocker to no-one. I'm seeing really significant stress in the restaurant sector. Just in recent days you have Macaroni Grill filing for bankruptcy and Chipotle posting horrendous earnings and guidance. A friend of mine just opened up a "bowl" concept along the lines of Bolay/Fresh Kitchen. On the night of the grand opening he came over to me and asked "is there light at the end of this tunnel?" That doesn't exactly scream confidence. The restaurant equation is pretty simple: there are too many of them out there in every category and virtually every market and not enough diners and dollars. Rents are also too high. The number of restaurants will fall as will rents.

The next wave will be Verizon/AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile retail outlets. You'll see that supply pull back sometime in the next 3-5 years.

Multifamily housing is getting to be overbuilt in many markets too and those properties have traded at nosebleed prices. There's a lot of pain coming down the pipe for commercial real estate.

I think the commercial markets have been contracting for sometime. As for housing, as more boomers retire you are going to see a plethora of houses start to become available BUT nobody is going to pay the price the boomers want. You will see long drawn out sales cycles until the boomers either settle or decide to keep their homes under the false belief the market will improve.

---

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."