141–150 of 226 posts
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IKEA doesn’t work online because of the cost of shipping on a per unit basis.
They have a flat charge, so if you buy a lot it can work. A lot of third party IKEA resellers on Amazon exist because of this (they basically run to the local IKEA to fulfill an order with better low volume shipping options).
They don't, at least in the UK. You pay a variable charge depending on what is shipping.
The article mentioned the Irish chain Smyths. This is a company that has grown from one store in a small Irish city to expanding in to and dominating the UK market in just over 30 years. Having shopped in both I can see the difference. Toys 'R' Us felt like it wanted to be part of the toy experience with their whimsical logo, mascot, jingle and colourful in-store decoration. Smyths on the other hand is just a toy war…
* Tends to be reasonably priced (I've gotten things there the same or cheaper than Argos)
* Is a quick walk from my flat in city centre
Though so far I've only bought baby things there (pram, etc.) not actual toys.
Neither of which applied to any ToysRUs in cities I've lived in.
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Anecdote time: I took my cousin (12) to a toy store once. First it was difficult to get him out of his iPad and get out of home. Second he was completely indifferent to anything in the store. We ended up buying some card games and credit for mobile games. + There aren't many kids anymore.
Kids. They don't make'm like they used to.
My son, now 8, has been hot and cold with toys. I think he'd rather just run around with the neighborhood kids and engage in mock battles with makeshift swords and such. He liked my old Star Wars toys for awhile, and we even bought a few new ones to add to that stuff, but lately those things are sitting in a big bin in the basement. He was/is a Lego nut and has tons of Lego sets in his room and I am hoping he doesn't totally lose interest in building the sets and making up his own. If he loses interest I'll have about a zillion Lego sets to sell on CL.
It saddens me that kids aren't kids very long because I enjoy playing with him but my free time is so tight and I am often so harried that it is hard to just say "I'm going to dig through these bins and find parts so we can rebuild this set together." He'll be leaving for college one day and I'll have these huge regrets! My son's other big obsession is Nerf guns--those have been an enduring pastime for him, but one can only buy so many Nerf guns before saturation is reached as they are often huge and bulky items that don't store well. Still, much fun, especially in the dark winter months.
The only other toys that had any lasting impact for my kids were the expensive wooden Thomas trains when they were 3-4 years old. I guess my son liked Hot Wheels for awhile and we still have a large parking garage thing in our family room that probably is getting dusty right now. That thing comes out when the slightly younger neighbor kids come over.
I felt like last Christmas was really expensive and yet we didn't really buy them much of anything really good and I told my wife I'm not doing that again just to have the appearance of a lot of gifts. If they aren't going to play with stuff, they aren't getting it because our house is too full of unused junk as it is. I'd rather take a trip to Disney or maybe skiing.
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Maybe. It's just strange as I've seen large % of commercial areas stay empty, they keep up the place, but almost nothing in the spaces, for years.
Perhaps they're hoping that the property value goes up so that they can one day sell it?
As a buyer you need to watch for new tenants at attractive rates as well. Sometimes the seller signs a 5 or 10 year lease with a connected company to drive up the cap rate, then a few months after selling the tenant defaults. As the landlord your recourse is limited, slow and expensive.
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There is some scope for a brick and mortar toy store provided they are willing to be double as a pseudo-playcenter. Toy aisles and toy stores are frequently populated by exhausted parents standing around while their children entertain themselves checking out the toys. The kids are happy enough. The parents are content just to have a few minutes to themselves. Toy retailers typically try and dissuade this behavior. Me…
I think there's a pretty good opportunity here for a large format combined playspace/toystore. Build out the toy area around some hands-on demo spaces, and include the normal playspace items nearby with climbing structures and coffee/alcohol for the parents. The key is: charge admission, then credit back the admission price toward the purchase of any new toy. People are terrible calculating sunk cost, and I'm pretty…
Despite the title and the focus on the form of financing, none of the facts in the article even suggested to me that the company would be in any better shape if it had used equity financing rather than debt. It sounds, rather, like an unprofitable business that no one in their right mind would give any more money. If someone thinks they can figure out how to make a workable business out of big box toy stores, it soun…
You're missing the key piece: Toys R Us didn't go into debt for any good business reason, it was bought by a private equity firm and loaded with debt it didn't need. This is how private equity works: 1. A PE firm uses a combination of other people's money (limited partners a.k.a investors) and debt to buy a company. 2. The PE transfers the debt to the company's books. This way, if the company goes bankrupt the PE fun…
here's one of many play by plays out there of what Bain capital has been doing for years: https://youtu.be/NS3s0xDL8A8
One of the more interesting theories I've heard is the link between the housing crisis and the retail crisis. When you live in a tiny shoebox, the last thing you need is more stuff. Back in the days people had comparatively huge houses all to themselves, and could buy crap to their heart's content.
We're definitely seeing a resurgence to simplicity after advertisers had performed scorched-earth on frontal cortex lobes.
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It's easy to avoid taxes by not making money, but as someone states in the third article you link to: "A wise colleague told me that until effective income tax rates reach 100 percent, a dollar of income is worth more than a dollar of deduction". That's just the apparently-not-so-well-known First Law of Tax: It is always better to have more money than less money.
While I wouldn't underestimate the degree to which some people will go to avoid taxes on principle I do agree that it seems a bit farfetched to intentionally fail your business to avoid paying some tax. I can definitely see a situation where the owner prefers to have some storefronts vacant rather than lowering the rents because they aren't sure lowering the rents would actually fill the storefronts and it might caus…
I've met people who sincerely believed making enough to enter another tax bracket would mean all their income would be taxed at that rate, not just income inside the range.
Begs the question, what kinds of local businesses are structurally safe from being disrupted by Amazon? Some that come to mind: * Food - restaurants, fast food, pizza, takeout * Social experiences - bars, cafes, arcades, comedy clubs * Things that can't be shipped - gas stations, perishables * Things you want right away - milk, delis, convenience stores * Things that can't be commoditized - Copying keys * Services -…
Every single one of those industries can be disrupted by Amazon given the right setup with partners.
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> Is it really worth the property owners keeping them empty? Yes. It's a tax dodge. [1] [2] The owners "...hold out for higher rents to increase the worth of their properties because value is based on future income stream...They can afford to forego current rental income, waiting for higher-paying tenants because they claim big business losses. Landlords get a tax loss from negative rental income when no rent comes i…
It's easy to avoid taxes by not making money, but as someone states in the third article you link to: "A wise colleague told me that until effective income tax rates reach 100 percent, a dollar of income is worth more than a dollar of deduction". That's just the apparently-not-so-well-known First Law of Tax: It is always better to have more money than less money.
If you have 100 shops, and rent 11 at $10k a month, and the rest are empty, you get $110k a month
If you have 100 shops, and rent 60 at $2k a month, and 40 are empty, you get $120k a month
Now lets assume a 50% tax
In the first example you keep $55k In the second example you keep $60k
Great, go for the second.
But now if you make the empty shops a tax writeoff, you instead
first example, $110k income, $850k loss. No tax to pay, total income $110k with no tax (and a £750k loss to offset other income) second example, $120k income, $80k loss. Tax to pay on $40k which is $20k, so total net income $100k
This is assume that you can claim that unrealised rent as a loss. I believe there are ways of doing that (charity shops for example)