Useless Conversation

[rattran]

I buy socks and butane at Bass Pro, but they're a special sort of American Hell.

[01101010]

Even as a Southerner who was raised in the country, I am severely intimidated by Bass Pro Shops. The place gives me a panic attack.

I went into a Cabela's for 10 minutes. I still don't think I'm quite the same as I was. It was a little similar to HST going into Bazooko's Circus I'd imagine, but more terrifying.

[schild]

Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops, were I the type of person to have a list of the first on the train, is precisely where I'd go to make such a list.

[Nebu]

I love Cabela's and Bass pro.  I used to buy stuff from the Cabela catalogs back in the day, particularly when I was doing survival training in Canada.  Now that they've gone mainstream, they seem to be a lot more like an outdoorsy Walmart sporting goods.  Still, some really cool stuff to be found. 

[Yegolev]

Our sales guy had the "amazing" idea to create a slack setup for customer support, where each client has a private channel (bigger clients at least, not no name consumers).  This is all fine and dandy except for the fact that we use slack for our internal communication.  So now my slack has two icons that look exactly the same, one external and one internal and I have to triple check anytime I write anything in slack.

We have our AWS reps corralled into a single #aws channel so I think that one could be on your admin.

[schild]

Google Fiber singups started today for East Austin.

My house will never know a coax line.

U R NOT E

[ezrast]

Bass Pro Shops and I share a hometown. Their HQ store is half a million square feet of ostentatious redneck design, replete with outdoorsy display scenes featuring waterfalls and live or taxidermied animals all over the place. It is... impressive.

Seriously, look at this shit.

[Bunk]

This is the entrance way to the new store.



I believe the Asians with camera phones out are a permanent feature.

[schild]

fuck that place

[Nebu]

Bass Pro Shops and I share a hometown. Their HQ store is half a million square feet of ostentatious redneck design, replete with outdoorsy display scenes featuring waterfalls and live or taxidermied animals all over the place. It is... impressive.

Seriously, look at this shit.

In Springfield?  I've been there.  It's like a redneck Disneyland.

[ezrast]

Yes. It is actually the city's #1 tourist destination, although I don't know if that's saying very much.

[Chimpy]

I remember the owner of the company I worked for say that when they setup the Shoji Tabuchi theater in Branson that the "fanciest restaurant" you could find within an hour drive of Branson was Bass Pro Shops.

[rattran]

That was the first Bass Pro Shop I went to, when I was dating a girl who had family in Republic. Impressive in  it's own redneck way, and I'd never before seen so many lifted pickup trucks in one place. Lifted pickup trucks and pristine Jeep Wranglers that had obviously never been off road  filled the lot.

[Merusk]

Cabbellas declared bankruptcy and is being bought by Bass Pro for 4.5 billion.

This is only the start of the big box consolidations I see coming. That model is doomed and it's only starting to feel it.



In another note, financial infidelity is a new term I learned today. 

[schild]

Only STARTING to feel it?

The model has been feeling it for fucking years. Book stores, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. The difference here is that Bass Pro and Cabela's was mostly immune to horseshit because their customers are fucking yokel trash that can't use the internet.

Thank god we've worked so hard to solve the last mile problem.

Edit: The wife points out this is also why Wal*Mart is so successful. Their customers can't even fucking read.

[Merusk]

Yeah, still only starting to feel. Big box is huge and those are maybe 10% aggregate. Target, Walgreens, Best Buy, Toys R us, and plenty of others not Wal*Mart are still seen as, "doing fine". When some of the more general retailers start to take hits then people will believe it's dying and needs a refocus.

We're close but not there yet. All those big boxers were still developing along traditional lines when I left a firm intimate with them earlier this year. Maybe the execs are hashing out next phase models but the store developers are still very old school.

[rattran]

I went into  BestBuy the other day, it reminded me of Silo and Circuit City before they went under.  Nothing not on sale was reasonably priced, employees were sharking the customers and fighting for sales, shit was thinly stocked. 

[Paelos]

I went into  BestBuy the other day, it reminded me of Silo and Circuit City before they went under.  Nothing not on sale was reasonably priced, employees were sharking the customers and fighting for sales, shit was thinly stocked. 

Best Buy is the next domino to fall since you can get stuff they carry at better big box stores while you buy groceries, and on top of that there's internet.

[IainC]

I went into  BestBuy the other day, it reminded me of Silo and Circuit City before they went under.  Nothing not on sale was reasonably priced, employees were sharking the customers and fighting for sales, shit was thinly stocked. 

Best Buy is the next domino to fall since you can get stuff they carry at better big box stores while you buy groceries, and on top of that there's internet.

A lot of big box stores are realising that a lot of their visitors are people coming to see what stuff actually looks like before going home to buy it on Amazon.

[Yegolev]

Well, yeah.  I bought pillows and a towel at Target last night because I want to feel those before I commit.  Yes, I can always return things but reboxing and returning is a pain in the ass.  It's also true that I can get the correct towel now if I buy it at Target.

Probably the biggest reason I buy at retailers is because I need something immediately and don't want to risk a late or lost shipment.  Also if it is something heavy, I can avoid a large shipping bill.  I think more work on the "order online, pickup in store" process would help these retailers, at least for objects over 75 pounds.

[Chimpy]

A 100% online/direct delivery model won't work for retail just as much as a 100% big box/magnet store retail model won't work anymore.

[rattran]

I've not yet had a satisfactory 'order online fro store pickup' experience. With Home Depot they tried to sell me an obviously opened and abused saw, Lowes got the wrong order. Twice. And Walmart just never found the item. Even if it's a couple more bucks at Amazon, it's usually worth it to avoid the hassle.

[HaemishM]

We just started using Kroger's click it and pick it system - create a grocery shopping list, pick it up the next day at the store. It was lovely. Turned what would have been a 30-45 minute shopping nightmare through packed ass shelves into a "sit for 10 minutes in the parking lot until they bring the shit out for you and load it into your car" joy. I mean, you do have to make your list a day in advance but other than for 1-5 items I need that night, I don't see a reason to ever go in the grocery store again. If the big retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy can't get their process that streamlined, they are fucked. We'll always need physical stores, but we don't need these lumbering behemoths full of expensive to stock shit. And we almost never need checkout people and checkout lines... ever.

The businesses realized this over a decade ago, but couldn't justify the expense of retrofitting all their existing stores with RFID carts that toted up your order as you put shit in the cart. It was cheaper to keep low-wage workers as checkers and cut their benefits, then lay off half of them when they need bigger profits (or to hide more losses). Online shopping with workers who just pick the items and take them out to you? That's a pretty efficient model and in 5-10 years (or sooner), it's going to be the norm. And a lot of those low-wage workers are going to be unemployed. When Wal-Mart is no longer the largest employer of "unskilled" workers, shit is going to get real. As in real fucking bad.

None of these fucks currently running these companies really grasp how fucked they are.

[Merusk]

I went into  BestBuy the other day, it reminded me of Silo and Circuit City before they went under.  Nothing not on sale was reasonably priced, employees were sharking the customers and fighting for sales, shit was thinly stocked.  

Best Buy is the next domino to fall since you can get stuff they carry at better big box stores while you buy groceries, and on top of that there's internet.

A lot of big box stores are realising that a lot of their visitors are people coming to see what stuff actually looks like before going home to buy it on Amazon.

Especially Best Buy here.  I heard a story that they were looking at smaller "showcase" stores intended for exactly that purpose.  The problem, however, was they still had the traditoinal retailer overhead to support during any transition.  Meaning they still wouldn't be able to compete on price because their margins weren't thin enough.

This is exacerbated by the fact that they own so many physical stores. Unlike Starbucks who builds them and then shunts the ownership to a realty group, BB, like WalMart and other traditional big boxers, has a real estate stake so they can't just drop the lease and move to the new model.

A 100% online/direct delivery model won't work for retail just as much as a 100% big box/magnet store retail model won't work anymore.

What I envision happening is more like the above model. Some frequent "pickup and go" items with high turnover are stocked at stores, the rest are floor models that will be delivered from a cheaper centralized warehouse, like Amazons model.

You're never getting 100% rid of brick and mortar. Not when demand for some things is immediate. Humans don't plan that well and emergencies happen.

When I had to retile my shower this weekend I wasn't going to wait two days for amazon to ship me shit that I wasn't sure would look right/ or work. I needed to pick it up and be able to return it that day.

[Nebu]

None of these fucks currently running these companies really grasp how fucked they are.

CEOs have no reason to care about the future since few have any long term investment in the companies that they work for.  The culture seems to be get hired, raise stock value, get your money and get out.  The tragedy is that this same strategy is being adopted by Chancellors and Provosts at the University level.  Come in, pad your CV for 3-5 years, and get out before the backlash your plan causes gets pinned on you.

[Yegolev]

I actually like the grocery store, but I shop at Ingles.  Kroger, like bacon, is for sycophants and products of incest.

I don't want physical stores to disappear completely.  I've worked to reduce the amount of shit I have in my house.  To that end, I do more frequent trips to my food warehouse, meaning the local Ingles.  They manage the inventory, unlike the delivered food boxes which require me to do something with the contents.  Until I can install a second refrigerator, I will have a hard time ordering all of my food and even then it might be left outside in the sun while I am at work.  It's far more practical to just make frequent runs and stop hoarding food for that bear from Star Wars.

I have had good online-order-store-pickup experiences, such as ordering tile from Lowe's.  Also bad, such as from Sears, but that is because Sears sucks so hard.

[01101010]

None of these fucks currently running these companies really grasp how fucked they are.

CEOs have no reason to care about the future since few have any long term investment in the companies that they work for.  The culture seems to be get hired, raise stock value, get your money and get out.  The tragedy is that this same strategy is being adopted by Chancellors and Provosts at the University level.  Come in, pad your CV for 3-5 years, and get out before the backlash your plan causes gets pinned on you.

Exactly what I see as well given my time in an academic setting.

[Paelos]

I actually like the grocery store, but I shop at Ingles.  Kroger, like bacon, is for sycophants and products of incest.

Didn't realize you'd gone THAT country as shit yet.

[01101010]

I actually like the grocery store, but I shop at Ingles.  Kroger, like bacon, is for sycophants and products of incest.

Didn't realize you'd gone THAT country as shit yet.

It there Piggly Wiggly in GA? Always knew I was in deep shit if there was a Piggly around the corner.

[Khaldun]

There's only two models left for brick-and-mortar retail. Either you have handcrafted or special-order stuff with a really special feel, so you're a destination store, or you're the really rare big fucking place that's still special in terms of variety *and* staffing. I'm not sure there's anything left in the latter category except food places.

[Teleku]

Happy to say I've never even heard of Bass Pro Shop till this thread.

[Yegolev]

I actually like the grocery store, but I shop at Ingles.  Kroger, like bacon, is for sycophants and products of incest.

Didn't realize you'd gone THAT country as shit yet.

I understand why you'd say that, but the Ingles is way nicer than the Kroger in all the towns I checked.  My local Ingles is even nicer than the nearby Publices.

We don't have a Piggly Wiggly, but I went to one in my hometown.  The nicer store (for white people) was the A&P.  There were at least two of everything in my home town.

[rattran]

Heh, my neighbors borrowed fish sauce from me last night. They returned it this morning telling me it had gone bad.  Apparently they were asking for malt vinegar and their fish and fries were ruined.

[Bunk]

Considering that the bottle would be labeled, that means they actually believed that the correct name for malt vinegar is "Fish Sauce"

As in they grew up, asking each other to pass the fish sauce when they ate fish and chips.

Would they not have noticed when they went to buy it in the store, that malt vinegar is not labeled "fish sauce" in any manner?

[Paelos]

I actually like the grocery store, but I shop at Ingles.  Kroger, like bacon, is for sycophants and products of incest.

Didn't realize you'd gone THAT country as shit yet.

I understand why you'd say that, but the Ingles is way nicer than the Kroger in all the towns I checked.  My local Ingles is even nicer than the nearby Publices.
We don't have a Piggly Wiggly, but I went to one in my hometown.  The nicer store (for white people) was the A&P.  There were at least two of everything in my home town.

I hear that about Ingles all the time. Especially from my lake people up at Lanier. There's no Ingles in Toco Hills though, so there we are.