Troubling Trends in Retailing - 2017 Will See Profits But Also More Bankruptcies In The Sector

Well, the 2016 retail sales results are in, like always there were winners and losers. Many large retailers showed gains in the very low single digits over last year's Christmas shopping season, while Amazon showed decent double-digit gains. Now then, I've witnessed a trend which is a little disconcerting. During my Christmas shopping this year as a consumer I had noted that many online retailers that also had brick-and-mortar stores did not have the items on the website in the inventory in their stores. This upsets customers.

After all if you want it right away, or you kind of like the idea of shopping, or if it is an item you really need to buy in the store due to its fit or size such as clothing, you need to try it on but if you get the story and it is not available, or they don't stock it, for instance I went to sports authority and could not find any of those clip-in bicycles shoes, they don't carry them in the store, but I definitely need to try on the shoes, I didn't want to order them, have them come, and not fit, meaning I'd have to ship them back and then order something else.

It turns out I was right to think this because when I did go to sports chalet their competition, the shoes that I wanted to buy didn't fit me in my regular size, they ran a half the size big. I didn't notice anyone on The Sports Authority website who mentioned that the sizes ran a half the size big on that particular brand of cycling shoes. This confuses customers and makes it very upsetting, it's something that the brick-and-mortar stores are going To figure out even if they're trying to cut costs and trim down their inventories to make higher profits.

It's almost like the problem we had with JIT or just-in-time inventory and supply-chain. With the warehouses no longer available, things were backed up all the way to the factory, waiting for the next run of the finite capacity scheduling model at the manufacturing facility. People want what they want and they want it now, and they want the best price, if not they're going to find a way to get it. I hope the retail industry gets it.

So, how are things going in the sector, I've outlined just one challenge in keeping customers happy, but there are many more when it comes to brick-and-mortar versus online retailers.

On January 12, 2017 the New York Times had an article titled; "Amazon to Add 100,000 Jobs as Bricks-and-Mortar Retail Crumbles," by Nellson D. Schwartz and Nick Winfield. The article noted:

"The 100,000 hires it plans for the next 18 months represent a 56 percent increase in the 180,000 full-time United States employees it had at the end of 2016. Amazon has more than 300,000 full- and part-time employees globally."

On January 17, 2017 we learned that: "The Limited Stores Files for Bankruptcy," from an article in Total Retail, with another article explaining the company's woes in the WSJ (Wall Street Journal).

Quite the dichotomy we have here, and it's clear who the real winner is, question is can the online retailers or dual-retailers figure out how to make it work before they are out of work? Please consider this.

Lance Winslow is an Online Author, his latest Small Business eBooks are about Online and Fixed Site Retailing. Lance Winslow is semi-retired and Founder of the Online Think Tank http://www.WorldThinkTank.net - You may contact Lance Winslow by email for dialogue, discourse, discussion, or debate on interesting topics.


 By Lance Winslow


Article Source: Troubling Trends in Retailing - 2017 Will See Profits But Also More Bankruptcies In The Sector