Retail Watchers

I recently read an indepth article about the ubiquitous "pooring" of America via fees of all types and colors (memberships for discounts, tiers for added something, etc., etc.). It's quite amazing and I suspect that most folks would be alarmed if they honestly tallied up all those numbers...

The past couple times I've gone into Ace Stores I've left empty handed due to the stores not having what I needed. The stores were semi messy, price labeling was sloppy, and one store was so helpful it was so obvious they thought I was there to shoplift and I became uncomfortable to even browse. The...

I didn't realize they were still in business. Granted, I'm not their target demographic, but I thought they went out of business years ago. They did a large chunk of closures a number of years ago. Maybe 2016 or 2017. The way it was marketed it felt like the whole chain had gone under at that time ...

Some Roark owned concepts that might fit (I didn't realize how many of these they owned); Auntie Anne's, Carvel, Cinnabon, Jamba, McAlister’s, Schlotzsky's, Seattle's Best Coffee (when did SBUX give that up?), Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Jimmy John's. I think any of these would be an upgrade fro...

Well, since Sonic and Arby’s are corporate cousins now, I wonder if they’re using the same fries? I don't think there is any integration at all between these chains. That is probably a good thing- I wouldn't want Sonic to influence Arbys in any way. I guess I'll have to go to Sonic and see how thes...

Around Reno there seems to be some kind of a weird thing going on with Ace Hardware. Someone is opening Ace Hardwares in what feels like every shopping center in town with enough space. I have no idea what the logic of this is. This is all very recent in the past few months. Multiple of these shoppi...

Remember that 90% of abandoned sites never emerge from retailer-landlord NDA agreements. I know so many just from my last company but I would never reveal them because NDA. Lease negotiations are always under NDA. The only time you ever will find out is when they make it to the altar and then someo...

The owner of the Yard Birds property is cleaning out what was left in the building and has invited the public to take what is left for free: https://www.chronline.com/stories/yard-birds-cleans-house-owner-of-vacant-shopping-center-invites-public-to-take-items-for-free,339547 OOF. What a tragic stor...

Futile attempt on this new label by Walmart. It's not their thing. Walmart was officially selling F&E products in their stores for quite a while when F&E was still in business. For the most part these were high quality products. They did a horrible job with it................really bad. Was...

100% agree with both of you on that Liberty store. Every time I have visited there it has been busy. The flow of customers is deceiving and does not clearly show how busy it really is. It depends on which side you are in. If it looks slow where you are you go to the other side and it is busy and vi...