Super S wrote: ↑February 10th, 2021, 7:13 amWhere department stores have failed is in not using the space in their larger locations efficiently. At one time, the larger stores were where you went if you wanted something not available in the smaller stores closer to home. I am going to use JCPenney as an example. The approx. 50K square foot store closest to me has a very poorly stocked mens department with a lot of wide open space. Not too long ago I was at the store at Clackamas Town Center, which is closer to 100K square feet and I still had a hard time finding what I was looking for and was surprised by how limited the sizing was given the larger store size. It wasn't much better. It's not always easy to order online when you don't keep track of things like an item number on a pair of pants which might vary from one store to the next and I prefer trying stuff on before I buy. Then you have stores such as Macy's, and more recently Fred Meyer, which do not stock anything above a 2XL regardless of how big the stores are. Even Walmart tends to stock certain items only seasonally. I recently had to take a gamble on buying some shirts online that I need for work and just hope that they fit properly.
There is room for improvement and a new retailer could make inroads if they could address the shortcomings of existing chains.
This is something that seems to be affecting all department stores. I saw it at JCPenney and its now at Belk. They have all this sales space that used to be filled with racks, tables, and floor to ceiling shelves along the walls of merchandise. Then they start moving all of that out and you just have blank walls and sparsely filled racks of clothes all spread out.
They're trying to make it look like there's more there than there is, but when this happens it's clear to me they are on their way out.
Why do they start decreasing selection and inventory? I don't know. It seems to exacebate the problems they're having in the first place. Not enough sales at a location? Decrease selection and inventory, and then anyone who does still come in won't find what they're looking for, and they go somewhere else.
If they do ask where it is? Go on our website, says the associate. Then the customer goes online to another retailer.
I think these stores must really know they are just about finished, so they have given up. It's amazing to me the difference between what my local Belk store looks like now, and what it looked like back in 2016, even 2019. It's a night and day difference, and quite depressing.
This used to be a nice place to shop. You almost couldn't get between the racks there was so much selection. Now it's like acres of wasted space.
I remember the same thing happened with JCPenney. Even non-clothing items. Take their housewares department for example. It used to have a wide selection of name brands. Want a KitchenAid mixer? They had it, they had sales and could compete with the other stores on price. After about 2017 or so it became a joke. Everything was spread out to look like they had a wide selection when there was very little in actuality. And everything became their own "Cooks" brand. No selection and totally uncompetitive. Nobody bothered looking at any of it whenever I was there.
To me these stores are just doing themselves in. Maybe they know they can't compete anymore with those cross shopping, maybe they know they can't compete with retailers that only do online sales, I dunno.
But I know the mall here is done for. The only large retailer they have left that seems properly staffed and stocked is Bealls. Only one fast food Chinese place left in the food court. Yeah they still have Bath and Body Works, Rack Room Shoes, GNC, Gamestop and Hibbetts, but what mall doesn't? Those aren't really destinations that are going to draw big crowds.
And a gym and a movie theater aren't going to draw traffic into the mall.
I agree how do these mom and pop locations purveying junk and weird items pay the rent? Even those seem to have all but gone from the mall here, leaving only empty spaces.