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The death of the brick and mortar toy store

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Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#231

Post by carlosjobim »

mschuster91 wrote: post #76
salynchnew wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a rather inefficient use of resources. How long will a fund typically keep that on the books before they have to offload the asset or declare bankruptcy? At a certain point, that smells like a scam with a real estate business attached to it.

> That seems like a rather inefficient use of resources. Inefficient for society? Yes. But for the capital providers aka investment (and let's be clear: retirement ) funds and banks? Definitely not. The fundamental problem at the root of all of it is how the US does pensions. In contrast to most European countries that operate in a redistribution system, aka the current workers pay the pensions of the current pension…

> In contrast to most European countries...

The entire industrialized world has the exact same problems with commercial real estate and rents for small businesses and people.

The common denominator across continents and political systems and economic factors and social factors: all the ownership is in the hand of the olds. Whether directly or indirectly through any kind of bank-and-funds-and-government schemes that can be dreamed up.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#232

Post by Computer0 »

strict9 wrote: post #4

My experience in a large US city is surprisingly the opposite. The toy stores I visit are doing great. I suspect this is is because a large portion of their business is for birthday parties. I assumed many or most were gone because of Amazon. But after having kids and getting gifts for birthday parties, I've learned there are a lot of them and they are doing healthy business. Almost always a line on weekends. Many or…

My experience in tier-2/3 US cities they are dying, even the local small businesses, as well as in the suburbs of Tier 1 cities.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#233

Post by me_smith »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #196
me_smith wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a timely comment for me. I have been doing research on opening a small indie (new/used) bookstore in a small old downtown I walk through almost every day. It has restaurants, specialty shops, coffee shops and a small local grocery store. I've always thought it was missing a bookstore. Any tips/warnings that might not be immediately obvious to a hopeful bookstore owner? Do you think there is a sweet spot in te…

I'm just an internet commenter who knows nothing about running a retail store and has thought about a bookstore as well. With that out of the way, finding high margin items to sell to offset low margin items would make sense. I think this is why you see coffee paired with bookstores, coffee should be high margin but might also require food licensing/inspections. Ideas for a local bookstore: seasonal and local items f…

Thanks for the comment and ideas. I was thinking through the different types of things that could be sidelines. You hit on many of them. There are some cultural festivals that occur in the downtown that can bring opportunities for some local craftspeople to share retail space before and after the festivals. Also, some branded items that go well with books like totes and bookmarks.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#235

Post by yummypaint »

kurttheviking wrote: post #6

I own a reasonably well performing indie bookstore. I've noticed for the model to work you need a critical mass of other local shops clustered to make the trip an experience for families and diverse tastes. My working theory is that three of such small businesses are sufficient and could operate well with a common inventory strategy and manager (e.g. a bookstore, a toy store, and a tea or candy shop...nothing that sp…

This is exactly the business model of Poor Richards in Colorado Springs. They have a pizzarea, book store, and toy store. It's been around for decades and is a local institution.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#236

Post by Tanoc »

mschuster91 wrote: post #76
salynchnew wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a rather inefficient use of resources. How long will a fund typically keep that on the books before they have to offload the asset or declare bankruptcy? At a certain point, that smells like a scam with a real estate business attached to it.

> That seems like a rather inefficient use of resources. Inefficient for society? Yes. But for the capital providers aka investment (and let's be clear: retirement ) funds and banks? Definitely not. The fundamental problem at the root of all of it is how the US does pensions. In contrast to most European countries that operate in a redistribution system, aka the current workers pay the pensions of the current pension…

One could feasibly make their debate topic that the U.S. is not actually a functioning country but instead has morphed into an extensive financialization scheme, and they could win that debate.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#237

Post by thepryz »

kurttheviking wrote: post #6

I own a reasonably well performing indie bookstore. I've noticed for the model to work you need a critical mass of other local shops clustered to make the trip an experience for families and diverse tastes. My working theory is that three of such small businesses are sufficient and could operate well with a common inventory strategy and manager (e.g. a bookstore, a toy store, and a tea or candy shop...nothing that sp…

That seems to be what Barnes and Noble has become. Every store now has books, toys, and a coffee shop inside and it seems they’ve been thriving in the last few years.

My biggest complaint though is that the bargain bin no longer contains books they are cycling out but instead seems to be books and other items specifically meant to be sold in the bargain bin.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#238

Post by anonyfox »

epolanski wrote: post #63

Capitalist efficiency ultimately makes shops barely able to compete on price and convenience with the few clicks needed to order and get stuff at home. My stepfather was a salesman/distributor, selling the most diverse things (mostly electronics and mobile-related, but not only) to shops in the entire Lazio region in Italy. 95% of the shops closed, even among those that didn't he often wonders why they keep buying fr…

well the worse it gets the closer the reset button comes. guillotine can and will end capitalism if people are affected too much, and they don't care about any logic when suffering is high enough. happend in history every single time, will happen again, and no one saw it coming or believed it would happen again. still, it did. and will. like always.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#239

Post by mschuster91 »

triceratops wrote: post #210
mschuster91 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The flip side is redistributive pensions require an ever growing population Stonk market based pensions require that as well! Someone has to work in the future and earn dollars so that he can give me these dollars for my stonks. And that falls apart when the working population drops - either due to demographics or because the world splinters apart and the age of global trading ends. Stonks are just as much IOUs as…

> And no, automation isn't a panacea either, because an economy not just requires workers to do work, but also people having money to buy things Automation is the whole reason people have money to buy things. Before we had automation everyone lived on farms and sewed their own clothes. Only noblemen could afford to pay for clothes. Your intuition is plain wrong, I'm sorry. AI may take away purpose if it takes away li…

> Automation is the whole reason people have money to buy things. Before we had automation everyone lived on farms and sewed their own clothes. Only noblemen could afford to pay for clothes. Your intuition is plain wrong, I'm sorry.

Every industrial revolution to this day produced insane amounts of job losses and suffering. In fact, that's how we got the labor rights almost a century ago. Affected workers literally got shot up over labor action.

And I'm sick and tired of that cycle always repeating and governments not giving a single shit about helping affected people and redistributing the wealth gain.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#240

Post by pstuart »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #197
ceejayoz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a big high-stakes game of musical chairs.

Ironically, this is one of the strongest proofs that American society is very un-capitalistic. Shareholders, who would have received the dividends from rent payments otherwise, simply go pound sand when this happens. Even though there should be plenty of shareholders willing to accept lower asset values in exchange for continued, reduced, dividend payouts.

America has a long history of privatizing profits and socializing costs.

Market economies are clearly preferable over demand economies (like, no question about it), but Late Stage Capitalism is bad for everybody except the oligarchs.

John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

With AI and Robotics looming over us, we would be very well served to re-examine our economic systems while we still have a chance.

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