The Unwanted Return

This week I will continue my story that I started a couple of weeks ago.

 

However, before I begin I want to update on a couple of things that have happened since my last post.

 

First, the shopping area that housed a Bob’s Discount Furniture and HomeGoods has been sold to a local church for their expansion.  While this is not a bad way to repurpose a building, there is a couple of things wrong with it.  It adds no new job to an area that could use new jobs and because it is a church, it will want a tax exempt status, meaning no taxes will be collected on this property.  This makes to add more of a strain to the city’s residents on taxes than it should.

 

Converting a shopping area to a church is nothing new as I saw this down south in North Carolina when a church repurposed an abandoned Ames store.  Unfortunately, they never tried to cover up the fact that this was Ames, as the letter scarring on the building was quite prominent.

 

Secondly, the Bob’s Stores chain has filed for bankruptcy.  This store was located in the same spot where other loser stores of Office Depot and Eastern Mountain Sports (part of the same company as Bob’s Stores).  Neither of these companies lasted for more than a year in that location either.  Originally, this store was the Kids R Us store, which is now integrated into the Toys R Us store.  So once again, this large space will soon be vacant yet again.

 

Speaking of toys, the chain of go!Toys has returned to the mall after being away for a couple of months.  It now occupies all 3 sections of the vacant GAP store.  The store is divided into 3 sections each using one of the 3 entrances from the store.  The 3 sections are Toys, Games, and Books.  Unfortunately, even though the store takes all 3 sections, they have built a fake back wall and have left about a third of the store empty.  Honestly, it would have been better to have used only 2 of the sections in full rather than use all three and leaving about a third of the area vacant.  Apparently they had no intention to do any remodeling as the store still looks like the GAP.

 

As far as the merchandise being carried in the store, the toys seem mostly aimed at girls with some items for boys.  The book section of the store is nothing more than a bargain book store section.  Nothing new here, just recycled titles priced to move.  I really would like to see a real bookstore return to the mall but unfortunately no such chain exists anymore and the Books-A-Million store really is not that great anymore.  I expect the “GO” chain will leave again if someone wants the GAP section as they did when the Pink store moved into the old Coldwater Creek location when GO was before.

 

 

And now onto Part 2 of my story:

 

 

When I left on March 30, 1996, I thought that having paperwork for a severance package would be the end of my appearance at Woolworth.

 

The following week, I went to the Unemployment office to fill out paperwork to start receiving unemployment benefits.  At the time, I was told that I had to wait until I received my severance before I could start receiving unemployment.  That sounded ok with me as I figured within the next month I would receive that large check and I could get on with my life with unemployment benefits while looking for a new job.

 

After six weeks, I had not received my severance check nor had my unemployment payments begun.  So I had to do the one thing I never wanted to do: return to Woolworth and find out what happened to my check.

 

So I went into the store through the back door one afternoon and went to the customer service desk.  I did not know the person behind the counter, but asked to talk to the manager on duty.

 

I waited anxiously for about 5 minutes until a familiar face arrived to the service desk.  It was personnel head Estelle.  She was probably one of the nicest managers I ever worked for during my years at Woolworth and never seemed to ever be angry.  She was always one of those perky women, who was also a little flirty. Despite being married with a teenage girl, she was only a couple years older than me.  I always thought she had a special place in her heart for me.  Being a petite woman with a slight top heavy build, she certainly was a fine woman and always kind to all.

 

Estelle and I went to the personnel office and I explained that I had not received my severance check yet and it was holding up my unemployment benefits.  She looked up my file and then made a phone call to home office in New York.

 

Interestingly, my information was not processed at home office because the person who processes the files was terminated back on Friday March 29^th of 1996, a day before I was terminated.  So Estelle faxed my information again to home office and then called them back to make sure that they received it.  Overall, I spent about an hour total to get this mess straightened out.

 

It would be about 2 weeks later that I would receive that long lost check.

 

During my short visit with Estelle, she seemed like she missed me as I was one of her better employees.  Even though I knew I never could come back, I missed them as well.

 

I never returned again to that store until the last couple of months of its existence.  During the time it was closing down, I saw Estelle in the store and she asked if I wanted to work for a few weeks as they could use the extra help.  I declined because I was already working full time at Staples and I remembered that they blacklisted me from their system.  So I expected that the only way they could ever pay me would be in cash as sort of an under the table approach.

 

I declined her offer and watched the last few weeks as Woolworth finally wound down in July 1997.

 

However, Estelle was not completely out of my life as about a year later she reappeared in a different place.  That will be the subject of a future post.

 

After I got on unemployment, the real fun began as trying to find a new job would begin.  This is where the story will continue.

 

There is much more to talk about during my years of Woolworth.  In future posts, I will discuss more goings on with the company, some happy, some sad, and some just totally disturbing.

 

We have only begun the real journey of what was the future past.

 

 

The Last Saturday Night

March was never a great month for me regarding employment.

 

I lost 2 jobs over the years during that month.

 

This blog post is about the loss of my job at Woolworth 20 years ago on March 30, 1996.  It was a Saturday night around 5pm that I received the breaking news that my life over with the company was over.

 

But there is much more to the story as to my downfall or should I say the company’s downfall.

 

The real downfall of the company began in October 1993 when the company announced that it was closing half of its remaining stores.  Certainly, this announcement created the mass media to endlessly call our store the day the news broke as to if our South Portland, Maine store would be one that would close.

 

Not only was our store spared, but the other 2 stores in Skowhegan and South Paris were saved as well.  Interestingly, that each of these stores represented 3 different store formats: Skowhegan was a downtown store, South Paris was in a strip mall, and my store in South Portland was a conventional mall location.

 

All 3 of these stores were all fairly successful stores in the areas that they served and continued to be profitable until the end.

 

However, even after closing half these stores, the company still had problems.

 

About a year and half after the closings, the company started streamlining the remaining stores.

 

The way they did that was to terminate non-essential full-time employees and give them a severance package for their service.  The employees that were let go were done so in groups of 3 about 6 months apart as the company continued to struggle.

 

As I saw the first 3 groups of employees get terminated, I realized that the people who I thought were my friends turned against me as I remained with the company.  I can understand their anger but honestly I don’t know why they would show so much hate toward me and the other remaining employees.

 

After watching all these employees leave, I really thought that most of the cutbacks were done.

 

That was until the week before I was terminated, when I heard of some major changes.

 

The biggest change that would begin on April 1^st would be that employees who worked on Sundays would no longer receive overtime pay for working that day.  Ever since the blue laws in Maine were lifted, any employee who worked on Sunday benefited from the extra pay, which is why I loved working on Sundays.

 

Another major change would be that the remaining employees would have to have open availability meaning that they would have to be completely flexible and be willing to work virtually anytime the store was open.  I really was not thrilled with that idea and am glad that I got out before that happened.

 

Both of these changes would have taken place on the day after my termination.

 

On the Saturday of March 30, 1996, I worked my normal shift as if nothing was wrong and that it was just another day.  However, all the employees were acting a little weird around me like as if they knew something but were not going to tell me.

 

Apparently, the day before, the 4^th round of terminations had taken place with 2 full-timers being let go.

 

The third full-timer to be let go would be me.

 

However, there was an unexpected twist to the whole scenario.

 

There was one full-time position for customer service desk person and two people up for it, Roberta and myself.  Roberta was with the company roughly a year before I got their so her short seniority gave her the option for the position.  However, being an older woman, she decided that she did not work nights or weekends as the position would require her to do, so she decided to quit.  In doing so, I believe that she gave up any chance to get a severance package.

 

So now the store had a problem.

 

One person quit and my paperwork for termination had already been submitted beforehand.  Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done and at a little after 5 pm, I had my exit interview.

 

While it was one of the most anguishing event I ever had to deal with, there were a couple of things that were interesting that was said to me.

 

The manager said that he would write a letter of recommendation so that I could use it for a future job.  However, I never had any such letter written.  I was also told that at no point could I EVER return to the company to ever be employed again in the future.

 

I found this rather odd as if the company was blacklisting its best employees.  Ironically, during its final weeks, when I just happen to be shopping in the store, I was asked if I wanted to work part-time to help out in the company’s closing.  Apparently they had forgotten about my blacklisting.  I declined their offer as I was already employed at the time.

 

However, there was one other interesting thing on that Saturday.

 

There was a teenage girl named Elizabeth, who on nights and weekends shared the customer service desk with me as well.  She was a senior in high school and about a dozen years younger than me.  However, this did not stop her from being flirty with me and being friendly with her mother.  It seemed that her mother wanted something to come in the form of some sort of relationship even though she never directly mentioned it.

 

It was also during Elizabeth’s senior year that she started smoking and seemed socially stressed, which may explain why her mother would want her to change her direction.

 

However, on the day of my termination, Elizabeth called out sick.  I think that because she worked the day before, she already knew that I was going to be terminated the next day and did not want to have to face up to either a goodbye or the potential that I was going to open up and finally ask her out, even though I think that is exactly what her mother might have wanted.  I must admit that I was attracted to her, but the age difference may have a problem.

 

The way that this potential relationship ended was similar to how the one ended with another girl that I wrote about a while ago when she called out for about 4 days in a row until she finally quit.  I guess what comes around really does go around.

 

So as I mentioned that I was already employed when the manager of Woolworth asked if I could help out.  I was already employed at one of their biggest competitors, Staples.

 

Yes, Staples helped put the nails in the Woolworth coffin especially since Staples started to dominate the back-to-school season.  Add to that the squeeze from competitors at Christmas from companies like KB Toys, Ames, Bradlees, and Toys R Us. Eventually the first 3 companies would all die killed by companies like Target and Walmart along with the emergence of dollar stores, which also started to appear near the end of Woolworth’s life.

 

After I walked out of the store on that final Saturday with a bag full of my locker stuff, I, like all the other terminated employees, had no reason to want to ever return and suddenly I had the same hatred that the others had.

 

However, a couple of months later, I needed to return for one very important reason.

 

And that my friends mean that the story will be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Very Brief This Week

This week’s post will be very short because next week, I will be writing a post on the 20^th anniversary of me leaving Woolworth.  It is hard to believe that it will have been 20 years and 19 years that the company has been dead, but more on that next time.

 

Right now, a couple of week ago, Staples reported its earnings.  While it is no surprise that the company is still not gaining any ground and the company plans on closing more stores this year, the stock price is exactly one half of what it was when I took mine 7 years ago.  Even though the stock has gone up, it has never regained back to where it should be.  I don’t believe this will ever be above $15/share ever again.

 

The merger with Office Depot is still in murky water as Staples is fighting in court to get the merger to go through.  As I have said before, everyone loses if this merger happens.

 

All signs right now point to a death of Staples within the next 5 years, not unlike the death of Woolworth nearly 20 years ago.  I will discuss my exit from the Woolworth next time and why it ended almost the same way that it began.

No Legacy Here, But Irony Everywhere

Last week Staples founder Tom Stemberg died of cancer at the age of 66.

 

Ninety-six years ago, F.W. Woolworth died of an infection at the age of 66. He was less than a week away from turning 67.

 

While there is irony that both of these men at the same age and that I worked for both of these companies, their legacies could not be more different.

 

At its heyday, Woolworth had created a company where the stores were located in many downtown areas for years and some lasted right up until the end of its existence in 1997.  Overall, the Woolworth store lasted in the United States for 116 years and still lives on overseas.  The only part of the Woolworth Company still active in the U.S. is Foot Locker.  This means overall that the Woolworth name has lasted 134 years and still going strong.    As far as retail is concerned,  this is an eternity.

 

Comparatively, Staples was born in 1986 by Stemberg after he could not find a ribbon for his printer because the local store was closed for July 4^th holiday.  His goal was to service businesses small in size with supplies they needed for day-to-day operations.  It is strange that he did not name the company something like “Stemberg’s” or “Tommy’s” or something resembling his own namesake instead of the generic word of “Staples”.

 

While most of the Woolworth stores were located in downtown areas, Staples stores were mainly located in strip malls or standalone locations.  Very few of their stores are located in large malls unlike Woolworth stores, which in its later years thrived in larger shopping malls.

 

Overall, all seemed well and good for both companies during their best times.  However, both companies have been dealt with the fate of economic downturn and store closings.  While the radical closure of roughly half of Woolworth stores in the early 1990’s triggered a sign of the company imploding, we are now seeing similarly the same thing to Staples now as they downsize their stores as well as close up many locations.

 

Along the way, both companies have let employees go to save themselves from self-destruction.  While being a victim of both companies, being laid off at Woolworth permanently with a severance package and being fired from Staples just because they wanted to (reasons I will explain in detail in a future post) and promised a severance that was never delivered upon (more on that in a future post as well), I have seen both of these companies heading to its ultimate doom.

 

During its life at the Maine Mall, the Woolworth store had a total of 3 store managers over 25+ years compared to the about 5 store managers during my near 13 years with Staples.  In the 6 years since I left Staples, I believe the body count of store managers has probably been about another 4 or 5 people.  Maybe someone who still works at the local Staples can fill me in on the actual body count of store managers since I left.  In other words to all this is that Staples cannot keep managers unlike Woolworth who was willing to keep its managers.

It is ironic to say that years ago (mid 1980’s), the Maine Mall used to have a store called “Loring, Short, and Harmon”.  This type of store was similar in nature to Staples in the types of product it sold.  When this store closed up shop around the same year as Staples was founded, I overheard a conversation which a customer asked an employee why they were going out of business and the employee’s response was that the “home office was dead and was no longer a viable customer”.  It seems ironic that one office supply company died in the mall as another company was being born a couple hundred miles away.  Was Staples going to serve a dead market as the LSH employee had suggested?

 

Finally, as both of these men died at the same age, their legacies are pretty much cemented.  Woolworth still has Foot Locker and it namesake Woolworth building in New York, whereas Stemberg still has the Staples named company along with the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.  However, since Stemberg doesn’t have anything directly in his name, he has no real legacy for his namesake.

 

So who wins the legacy award?  Hands down it’s Woolworth with its continued legacy.  Honestly, Stemberg has no legacy as Staples will never last as long as the Woolworth namesake did and eventually Stemberg will become just another lost founder in the retail world just like the founders of Borders, Circuit City and many others.

 

Who even remembers their founders?  I don’t.

 

Tom Stemberg can rest in peace knowing that Staples will be long forgotten a hundred years from now unlike Woolworth who will probably still be around a hundred years from now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Paranoia of Feeling Safe

When I decided to write this week’s post, little did I realize that I would first want to address yet another violent attack that happened today in Virginia.

 

If you did not hear about this former reporter who decided to kill a television reporter and cameraman while filming the whole thing himself and have it happen on live TV, this is once again proof that there are people out there who have problems.  Unfortunately, both the reporter and cameraman died and later the shooter took his own life.

 

Are we becoming a society where no place is safe anymore?

 

Shortly after this attack, the general manager of the TV station came on the air to give his condolences to the families of the victims.  He was a big boy to quickly address this issue and wanted to express his deepest regrets.  This was the smart thing to do.

 

However, another company did just the opposite.

 

Last week, a customer was brutally attacked at the Saco, Maine Shaw’s store in the frozen food section.  Apparently, the attacker did not like the way the customer looked at her and decided to slash her throat thus killing her in the store.  The attacker and the victim did not know each other and the attack was completely random in nature.

 

While the attacker seems to have some problems and was planning this attack for about a month, it seemed strange that when this attacker came into the store that some employee didn’t sense something was wrong with them.

 

However, after the attack happened, the store remained open for business for an additional 2 hours to service the customers.  To add to this, they reopened the next day as if nothing ever happened.

 

Now think about this:  it is an active crime scene and people are still wandering around areas where the two people may have crossed paths throughout the store.  Why is money so important to Shaw’s that it disrespects the victim laying dying in the frozen food section?

 

While certainly this was a horrible scene to both customers and staff, it seems inconceivable that any company would remain open just to make a profit.  What is worse is that Shaw’s had several complaints on their Facebook page about the situation and they ignored the whole topic.

 

Yes, just like with my email, the company ignored facing the media or even writing responses to their critics.  Apparently this company wishes not anymore scrutiny than it had already received and remained quiet.

 

Honestly, in this case as with me, this was the wrong way to go.  The company should have reached out to both the victim’s family and social media to reassure customers that this was an isolated incident and does not reflect how business is usually done.

 

To me, it seemed irresponsible for the store to remain open for 2 hours after the incident, but maybe the management didn’t have a clue on how to handle the situation.  However, if they wish to use this as an excuse, then this just shows how incompetent the management of Shaw’s really is.

 

To make matters worse, by ignoring the situation, they are proving that they are nothing more than greedy bastards who careless about its customers and more for its bottom line.

 

Shame on Shaw’s for their disrespect in this situation.  I wonder if they would do the same thing again if they had the chance.  My thought is they would never have changed their procedure in this situation regardless of the outcome.

 

It is sad for the victim of the disrespect that she received just because the company wanted to make more money.

 

Finally, let me say that I don’t know how Staples would handle a violent situation like this if it happened in one of their stores.  My thought is that they would stay open as long as possible because they too are a greedy company who cares more about gaining a buck than the greater good of their customers and employees.  If anybody out there knows what their policy is, I would love to know if anyone would like to share that with me.  There were times that violent threats were made to me while employed at Staples, yet the management never did anything about it.  During my time with the company, I asked several times about this and was just shrugged off like it would never be a problem.

 

However, I do know that violence IS a problem as I was a victim back in my days while working at Woolworth.  The problem back then was the management’s reaction and the snowball effect that happened after that changed everything around the mall.  I will discuss this in detail in a future post.

 

So overall, fingers are pointing back to management who are incompetent and care more about profits over customer service and safety.  How many violent acts have to happen before somebody thinks about putting respect before profits?

 

I think we all have a very long wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Target Fails Again

I am in no way a fashionista.

 

One look at my wardrobe and you would think that I was closer to hobo than anything that resembles anything else.

 

However, that doesn’t mean that others don’t believe in dressing in nice clothes.

 

While I may not know anything about clothes, I do know about retail problems when they happen.

 

Such was the case last week when Target offered designer clothes on the cheaper side by designer Lily Pulitzer.  Now while I have never heard of this person, it appears that many people have.

 

Apparently, this created quite a problem for Target.  Call it like a “Black Friday” event or worse a “Cabbage Patch Doll” effect.

 

People were lining up hours before stores opened to be one of the lucky ones to get their hands on the designer duds.  Those who were lucky enough to get their hands on the merchandise took overflowing shopping carts to the registers (posting their booty take on social media sites), while most others wound up empty-handed and angry.  Even the company’s website reportedly crashed because of the flood of customers there as well.

 

No, make that incredibly angry.

 

So angry were these people were that they flooded the Facebook page proclaiming their rage.

 

However, in the end, Target was very happy that the product did a full sell-through, which is very uncommon in the retail industry.

 

That happiness was short-lived as within hours many of these items started showing up on eBay for about double the original store price.  At that point, Target announced their disappointment that the product started showing up online.

 

Did they NOT see this coming?

 

Did they NOT think that anyone would ever wear 20 versions of the same dress?

 

What about limited quantities?

 

The idea of limiting quantities was not limited as it should have because they thought it would not be a problem.

 

Are they serious?

 

Just how ignorant are the employees at Target?

 

Given that it took so long to admit to the data breach, I am not surprised by their ignorance in this situation either.

 

They mention that they can limit quantities in their ads (as do every other retailer), but to not enforce it just leads to problems.

 

So once again, Target has angered their customers to the point where many may never shop there again (again).  Will they have to bend over backward again to please all other customers due to this problem?

 

While this is nowhere near the extent of a problem as the data breach, it certainly got enough media coverage that it could hurt them almost as much.  Target is completely to be blamed for not imposing limits on the purchases and the consequential result of online sales on eBay.

 

Now, of course, these type of things used to happen way back when I worked at Woolworth.  Back in those days, long before eBay was born, we used to have people buy video tapes (remember those?) , mostly Disney titles, in very large quantities because the customers wanted to resell them at their own small stores in the smaller communities.

 

The biggest reason why people bought the bulk of their video purchases at Woolworth was that we were selling most titles at a discounted price that was less than any of the area competitors at the time.  We were even The store was still making money but most times, we were selling titles for even less than the circular price.

 

While this was a wonderful thing, this still meant that we needed a huge number of each title to sell.  It was not uncommon to get around 250 copies of each title when it was released because our sell through rate was near 100% and this meant that I spent many hours pricing each individual copy of titles as they came in.  This kept me busy for hours but the titles sold just as fast as they came in.  No other retailer that I know of ever had that many copies of a title at one time, nor do I think even today that stores would even have that many on even in this age of DVD and Blu-ray discs.  It just is not practical to have that much inventory on hand at one time.

 

So, realistically Woolworth had the same basic problem that Target had, just that it never got the coverage because it was single location limited and there were no social media sites .back then.   .

 

Ironically, during my time at Staples, I never saw that sort of problems because they always had such limited quantities of most items and never had rainchecks and most times items could not be ordered online.

 

Overall, I believe Target took a hard lesson from this and apparently they have no plans to offer any more designer clothes in the near future from Lily Pulitzer despite being a sellout.

 

Thankfully, my wardrobe is extremely conservative and somewhat has that hobo feel to them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Radio Shack Could Have Saved Themselves

 

Radio Shack at the Maine Mall — February 27, 2015

The picture shown above is the RadioShack at the Maine Mall as of last week.  This store is scheduled to close up shop in a couple of weeks.  However, if you look there is still quite a bit of merchandise left in the store, which means that even a going out of business sale can bring in the people.

 

RadioShack at the mall was one of only 3 stores in the mall that pretty much remained in the same spot during its entire life.  The others being Sears and Olympia Sports, although Olympia may have moved a few inches when the mall remodeled during the early 1990’s.

 

It is interesting that 2 of the original mall stores were in the same wing with Sears being the anchor store at that end.  I knew that end of the mall extremely well as I worked at Woolworth in that end for almost 10 years.  However, they are gone from the mall along with the Waldenbooks and Pet Menagerie that were across the way from Woolworth.   Now with RadioShack leaving, this leaves only Sears from the original mall.  It should be noted that Spencer Gifts (now known as Spencer’s) was originally part of the old mall, but has since moved down to the JCPenney wing.

 

So now the real question is how could RadioShack have been saved?

 

First, let me say that at one point this company was proud of its expansion to 5,000 stores.  This landmark store was located in the mall in Peabody, Massachusetts.  There was even a large plaque located outside the store touting this fantastic feat.  Unfortunately, this store closed up a couple of years ago and the plaque is long gone.  I could imagine that this plaque probably ended up in some dumpster somewhere when the store was gutted and replaced by a Payless Shoe Store.

 

Some of the ways that could have saved the company range from the obvious to the obscure.  Enjoy the following ride through time.

 

1. The company COULD have hired me 6 years ago as this was the only company that was interested in my application. Of course, you are probably saying “what difference would this have made?”  The truth is that many companies appreciate employee input and I certainly had many creative ideas that could have been implemented, but because they never hired me, it was their loss.
2. It killed the Tandy brand when it was not doing that badly. Sure jokes can be made about its color computer and its legendary TRS-80 machines, but this was at one time a very competitive company.  Many people loved their machines and were loyal to repurchasing from the same company when looking for a new machine.  As one of the earliest IBM compatible machines, their PCs had features that Big Blue could only dream about.  The big thing about this is that at the time the salespeople were knowledgeable about their products and were always willing to help.  In fact, I remember one RadioShack location that used to have a stack of PCM Magazines next to their machines so that people could see what these machines could do.  For those unfamiliar with PCM Magazine (not to be confused with the more popular PC Magazine), this was dedicated solely to the Tandy brand of computers.  However, many of the articles were generic enough to be used with any DOS compatible machines with little to no modification.  This is quite possibly one of the best magazines for programming games back in the 1990’s.  In a future posting in my other blog, I plan on discussing some of my favorite computer magazines from the bygone era.
3. The closing of its big boy store Computer City was probably one of the biggest mistakes in RadioShack history. For those who don’t know about this company, this was one of the better computer retail chains of its time.  These stores were like a supermarket of computers and computer-related items.  Aisles and aisles of nothing but software, hardware, and other items at fairly reasonable prices.  The company had roughly a dozen or so stores spread out throughout the country and the nearest one to me was about 150 miles away in Nashua, New Hampshire.  Whenever I was in the area, I would always stop there to look around and sometimes by some piece of software that was hard to find.  The bad thing about this company was that because I lived outside of a 100 mile radius of the store, I never received anything by mail even though I signed up in store to receive any mailings they had to offer.  Sadly, this company died because of its competitors.  Ironically, this store became Staples after the company’s death.  What was even more bothersome to me was when I was on vacation around Orlando, Florida and I saw a bulldozer around a pile of rubble while the large “Computer City” sign was still standing proudly at the former entrance.
4. The selling of cellphones is probably the biggest mistakes that RadioShack ever made. With so many competitors in this crowded field, they became an also-ran rather than a leader in the cellphone business.  When I was looking for a phone, I checked out the store, but every time I asked the young girl a question, she had to go and get the answer from somewhere else.  This to me was all the proof that I needed that their associates were very poorly trained.
5. Finally, the selling of those great toys back in the 1970’s. Gone are those great science kits and remote control cars that RadioShack was known for.  Why they really gave up on the tried and true on these items is beyond me, but I can only assume that the science kits became to “old tech” and the cars became sold in other retailers like Sears and JCPenney, along with the other general retailers.

 

Overall, back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, there was no Target, Walmart, Circuit City, Staples, or Best Buy to compete with.  The only competitors locally were Lechmere and Woolworth.  Of course, both of these companies are gone along with Circuit City, so certainly much of the tech area has been hit and miss.  I remember several nights when assistant manager Bill from RadioShack came over to Woolworth to buy a snack and he always said that his store was always “busy”.  Looking over across the way, it was obvious that there were several people in the store shopping for that item that could not be purchased elsewhere at the time.

 

Unfortunately, not even a “going out of business” sale, as shown in the picture above can bring in the customers anymore.  If Bill was still working for the company, he would not be able to say that he was “busy” anymore.

 

But then again, he would not be able to buy his snacks at Woolworth anymore because they bit the dust several years ago.  Another piece of mall history soon to become real history, thankfully I still have the memories of the better days of the mall.

 

At least the mall isn’t dead.

 

Yet.

 

 

 

 

 

They Call It Black Friday?

Last week of course was the dreaded Black Friday.

 

The thing is that you almost could have fooled me.

 

Yea, there were the crowds but by the time I got out after noon time on Friday, some of the crowds had already left.

 

Wherever I went, I found parking to be extremely easy this year as compared to past years at the local mall and at Target and Walmart.  Surprisingly all 3 areas were not at all difficult to find that fairly close parking spot.

 

Ironically, I was also able to find most everything I was looking for and plenty of it.  Either nobody wanted what I was looking for or the stores just had too much of it to begin with.

 

However, it appears that what I saw locally was a trend nationally as well.  Reports are that sales for Black Friday were down some 11% from the previous year.  Maybe people just don’t need any more flat screen TVs in their lives.

 

So where should be place the blame for the decline in sales?

 

I blame the ads.  Everybody wants you to be one of the first people to get a free gift, coupon, or other special item.  Just how many ways can a person divide themselves up to be everywhere at the same time.  Of course, some companies like Walmart and Target had endless pages of ads that could easily confuse anybody.  Unfortunately, 2 companies, RadioShack and Books-a-Million did not have an ad out in Thursday’s paper, but Books-a-Million did have an ad out in Friday’s paper.  Both of these stores seemed relatively empty compared to the competition and it certainly showed.

 

I blame the prices.  Many of the prices in most of the stores were higher than they had been weeks before Black Friday.  So if you shopped before that day, congratulations you probably got a better price than you could have done on that Friday.  I expect that the best prices of the season are behind us for the year.  If you don’t need something this year, I would wait until after the first of the year when stores will be clearance out the old merchandise.

 

I blame the protestors.  Even though locally I never saw any protestors, certainly they were out in stores making their voices heard with the recent court decisions that have created issues in race relations.  It is not the time or place to express those type of opinions and I am angry that some people want to spoil other people’s enjoyment.

 

Finally, I blame stores for wanting to extend Black Friday into a multi-day event.  Yes, this year many stores created anywhere from a single day event to a near weeklong event.  With this much time, sales were spread out over several days making the big day sales not so prominent.  I believe their plan of making longer sales backfired as shoppers were not compelled to shop on Friday alone.

Why Staples is Sliding in its Stocks

In my last post, I discussed the giving of huge bonuses to the top executives of Staples.

 

Since then, the stock has dropped to below $11/share, making it to one of the lowest points in the company’s history.

 

Five years ago, when I left the company, the stock was valued at over $21/share and now it is worth about half that much.

 

So what is really happening here?

 

Bad weather has been the excuse used most of the time as the reason for the company’s failure to make the company’s sales goals.  Even with the closure of companies like Circuit City, Staples still can’t improve and continued to fall when they should be gaining ground.

 

I feel that the real reason for their ongoing problems can be broken down to a couple of different things.

 

The first is that almost all the items that Staples sells can be purchased elsewhere sometimes at a considerably cheaper price.  This is has been especially beneficial to companies like Walmart as it has been a one-stop for just about everything.

 

But even Walmart has been hurt by such things as dollar stores and smaller retailers.  So companies like Walmart can’t be blamed totally for the decline of Staples despite them causing a major hit against them, although Staples uses them as an easy target for their own decline.

 

The other problem is with the store’s management.

 

Anybody who has ever shopped or worked at Staples knows that the management seems to change almost as much as the staff that it employs.  The reason is that if a manager sucks, they are shown the door.

 

Unfortunately, no manager is safe with Staples.  Whether it is the store manager or sales manager or another manager, the company is notorious for eliminating managers on a regular basis.

 

During my nearly 10 years at Woolworth, we had only 2 store managers and 1 interim manager.  During my nearly 13 years at Staples, we had at least 5 store managers and countless sales managers.

 

This regular changeover of management never made Staples an enjoyable place to work as each manager brought in their own rules and policies, basically undoing the policies of the manager before them.

 

So are the managers that bad?

Not at all but Staples would rather fire managers and put someone new in rather than staying the course and having some consistency within the company.

 

Overall, I feel that Staples should stop swapping out managers so frequently and learn to accept managers’ flaws.  However, Staples is either unable or unwilling to suck it up and accept their managers.

 

So this whole scenario creates the instability that is unloved by those on Wall Street, therefore the stock continues its downward slide.

 

In some ways, I am thankful that I am no longer with the company as they continue their own slow death.

 

Sometimes liars do benefit others.

 

 

 

 

Earnings Slips Again, But the Money is Free Flowing

Well, here we are at the end of another quarter and yet another big disappoint from Staples.

 

Is anybody surprised that the company continues to miss the sales estimates quarter after quarter?

 

I certainly am not the least bit surprised.

 

Of course, as they have done for past quarters, they blame the weather.

 

How long are they going to continue to blame something that never changes?

 

Seriously, it is time to admit the truth.

 

YOUR SALES SUCK AND NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT!!

 

Do I make myself clear on that one?

 

What really irritates me on this is that other companies use the same lame excuse as well.

 

Certainly, places like Home Depot and Lowe’s can blame the weather in places where a lot of building takes place.  It is understandable in that regards.

 

Target and Sears can’t really blame the weather either as they also continue to have suffering sales.

 

So what is really wrong here?

 

The answer is that Staples is clueless about their future.

 

When I read the transcript to their last earnings report, they stated that they didn’t have the information about the back-to-school season yet.

 

Ok, if this is not the most obvious lie in the world than I don’t know what is.  They claim that they won’t know the plans until early July.  To make matters worse, they say that no company is ready for back-to-school this soon.

 

Excuse me.

 

I remember back in the Woolworth days, we started getting all the back-to-school merchandise in before the old school year was over.  In fact, we even started having some of the flyers start trickling in as well for the season.

 

In fact, when I worked for Staples, the same thing was happening there as well.  To say that they don’t know is either providing that Chairman/CEO Ronald Sargent is either an idiot or just blind to see what his company is really doing.  Of course he must take his lead from Obama as he is clueless as well on what is going on in the world around him.

 

Now on another front, Staples is handing out bonuses to their executives for “trying to turn around the company”.

 

Of course, this is dumb as well as sales continue to drop and slump to lower levels every quarter.

 

As an example of the payouts, pinhead Sargent got a $300,000 bonus for a total compensation of $10.8 million, a 40% increase over the past year.  This is at a time when the employees get fewer and fewer, while the fat cats at the top get more than plenty to live on.

 

So overall, Staples continues to slip all around, while freely handing out its profits to the top brass.

 

This all leads me to think that this company is definitely on the road to failure.

 

What will they blame next quarter, Godzilla, anyone?