Retail Watchers

I stopped at Ross again today. No lines the last few times I've been, but quite a few people shopping. The departments are looking really empty, men's only had a small amount of clothing in each size. Housewares was actually stocked pretty well but still quite a few empty shelves. Carts were across ...

I liked Publix having an employee to wipe carts continuously, it is a nice touch. I am guessing these employees have been directed to this task who otherwise would be bagging groceries and helping people out to their cars, and also bringing back carts from the corrals. But I don't really see this la...

I stopped at Ross and Marshalls today for first time since the closings. It was rainy so there wasn't much traffic. Marshalls had a sign stating only 115 were allowed in at once (seems like a lot) and an employee with gloves offered me a cart in the vestibule. There were corporate signs saying "...

I visited Lowes tonight. The two self checkout counters were unsurprisingly closed. There were markers on the floors for distancing at the checkouts and cones in various sports with signs stuck in them reminding to stay 6 feet apart. The employees all were masked. There was an announcement that went...

I did not notice any of that at Home Depot here. I had heard they were limiting people in the stores back in March and April, but apparently by this point that practice had stopped. I would not be happy to be snapped at for trying to use a self checkout (wouldn't that make more sense in allowing bet...

The Golden Corral here has reopened apparently. They are offering a selection of meals for dine in or carry out. I hope it works for them, they donated hundreds of meals back in March, I assume so they wouldn't waste what they had on hand.

Just found out the one here is closing. Not surprised since it hadn't reopened. That leaves only Bealls and Belk as the anchors at the mall, and 3 large vacancies. Don't see it improving, they will never fill that many large spaces, even with non-retail tenants.

Everything has changed again. Now many McDonald's are going back to drive thru only. Take out is closed, and they are boarding up the windows. They do not want to let anyone inside. No one wants to take a chance with looters and robbers. I think it is a good time for restaurants to switch to bullet...

Agreed. I just watched some footage of the mall in Tampa, of rioters trying to break into a store. Lots of police units arrived to basically blockade the entire mall.

I think a lot of the kitchenware stuff was scaled back too. Since around 2015 or so I noticed there was not much of that left at Sears here, although Kmart actually had a pretty good selection when they closed. I'm thinking some of the lines may have already been discontinued since I'm not seeing mu...