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J.C. Penney Stock and 138 Store Closings

edited March 2017 in Off-Topic
While there's been a lot of talk about the loss of America's industrial base and factories closing, not nearly enough is discussed about the slow death of retail bricks and mortar stores:

usatoday.com/story/money/2017/03/17/jcpenney-store-closure-list-j-c-penney/99298728/

businessinsider.com/store-closures-wreak-havoc-on-shopping-malls-2017-1

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J.C. Penney's stock hasn't been this low since 1980. Although I'm not big on conspicuous consumption and materialism, there is something more than a little sad about the death of America's malls. Nor can the 5,000 jobs lost in these JC store closings be blamed on globalization, foreigners, illegal immigrants, China, etc. This is something we are doing to ourselves by shopping online. I have more than a few fond or at least funny memories of hanging out at the mall as a teenager with my friends, going to the movies, getting into mischief and flirting with girls. Now I suppose all of that "human interaction" is done via Instagram and Facebook. Ah well.

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Comments

  • TedTed
    edited March 2017
    @ Lewis: Good morning Lewis, it's called online shopping ! Here are a dozen more closings.
    Regards,
    Ted
    http://www.clark.com/major-retailers-closing-2017

  • msf
    edited March 2017
    The decline of retailing, or at least middle class retailing, has been going on for decades. Some of the upper middle class stores went further upscale, other middle class retailers went downscale or bust. IMHO online shopping just accelerated the trend.

    What happened to stores like Emporium, Wieboldt's, Bambergers? Does Macy's tell Gimbels? Not then, and it can't now.

    Unfortunately, JCP is just another in a long line of such stores.

    The Department Store Museum: http://www.thedepartmentstoremuseum.org/
  • Ted said:

    Lewis: Good morning Lewis, it's called online shipping ! Here are a dozen more closings.
    Regards,
    Ted
    http://www.clark.com/major-retailers-closing-2017

    Closings represent only one side of the ledger. Sometimes a store moves down the street. Or in the case of CVS, which is reported to be closing 70 stores this year, that comes on the tail of it acquiring 1672 pharmacies from Target.
    http://www.retaildive.com/news/why-target-sold-out-to-cvs/413432/

    JCP is a different story.

  • From shopping downtown, to the mall, & now the net !! What's next ?
    I'll stick with the first two choices.
    Derf
  • edited March 2017
    The Mall will be the next to go. I remember once being able to go to Circuit City because I knew they had knowledgeable sales people to help. Then they fired the 'old' guys in favor of a younger, cheaper workforce. I understood why they did it, but I no longer had a reason to go there. And, then I met my new best friend Amazon. Now, I seldom if ever go into a store. I've now substituted the experiences of others (reviews), for the wisdom of sales associates. JC Penny, Macy's, Sears/Kmart and others will all be extinct, very soon.
  • edited March 2017
    I was going to stay away from this thread. Let me tell you why Yours Truly stopped shopping at JC Penny. It happened one day several years back. I learnt that a leather jacket I couldn't afford to buy priced at $200 actually took $10 to make, and $20 when it left the shores of the country it was made in. It just seemed wrong and had no justification.

    I might consider paying for a $200 jacket made in the USA today because I could afford it (well as soon as my elder decides which college she is attending I can confirm). I would do that because I know what the cost of living is in different parts of our country, and even after accounting for exhorbitant executive salaries, I could justify it. I couldn't do that on that fateful day which was at least 20 years back.

    Don't want to sound overly dramatic, but that day really shaped my thinking. I started putting limits on how much I would pay for everything, from my underwear to my house. And it has translated to not paying $4.50 for bubble tea today (which I think is absolute crap and I don't really know what monsanto cooked up liquid those bubbles are made off).

    The problem is not the mall. The problem is JC Penny. The irony is in the name. Penny. Hah!
  • @VintageFreak
    OK, a logical argument about the jacket, but the bubbles in bubble tea are made of tapioca, and Asian/Chinese people and tea shops have served them for many years. I love bubble tea!
  • Originated in Taiwan. Been enjoying them there (and here) for years.

    Tapioca is used for one of the best types of flour without gluten. Horn and Hardart used to make a great tapioca pudding.

    Remember Horn and Hardart from a different era of shops and closures?

  • Andrew Ross Sorkin's column today about Sears Holdings adds yet another dismal view of traditional retailing.
    https://nyti.ms/2mOQ63C
    We shop at Aldi, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Kroger, Meijer, Dollar Tree, and TJX stores regularly and could not do without them. Sears, Penney, Macy's, and their ilk hold no attraction; the only reason I have to go to a mall is the Apple Store, but that's rare. All the rest of our business goes to Amazon and online merchants.

    The whole milk with the cream on top that the local dairy delivered to my parents' house is not just an anachronism whose passing some regret. Today we don't touch dairy products because science has shown the harm they surely cause. Mr. Friedman's haberdashery of my childhood is gone, but I don't regret the corduroys and jeans that required several washings before they stopped chapping my legs.
  • @VintageFreak
    OK, a logical argument about the jacket, but the bubbles in bubble tea are made of tapioca, and Asian/Chinese people and tea shops have served them for many years. I love bubble tea!

    Yeah I know it is Tapioca. However if I find out it costs $0.02 for those bubbles I'm telling my daughter she has to pay for her bubble tea herself. I would rather feed someone for $4.50.
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