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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

#61

Post by xz18r »

voidUpdate wrote: post #58

What country are they in? The list of shops seems to suggest belgium/the netherlands. Because in the UK, I often go to toy shops with my partner. There's probably two shops in the same shopping centre you could call "toy shops", as well as a GAME which sells video games. All three of them sell lego, as well as quite a few other shops. There's also a Cex and a mini Cex if you want to buy video games and get ripped off…

The blog writer is in Belgium, just like myself. Can confirm that there are almost no brick and mortar toy stores left in my area (which from what I can tell is the opposite side of Flanders).

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#62

Post by netcan »

LPisGood wrote: post #50
armenarmen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Commercial is priced at a multiple of rent. So when an owner still has a loan on a building that was based off of multiple of 3000/mo and decides to rent it out for 1500/mo it effectively cuts the value of that building in half. Just an accounting issue for someone who owns it out right, but devastating for someone with a loan. I think this is why you’re seeing landlords offering multiple free months of rent no…

I’m not sure if the explanation in the second part holds water. Wouldn’t the reduction in property value be the same as the ammortized free rent?

No. Not if the valuations and downstream effects of valuations are formulaic, which they often are.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#63

Post by epolanski »

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 from him rather than on Alibaba or Amazon where he often cannot compete on price. And same for those client's customers.

It's hard to beat the convenience of online ordering for them, let alone the pricing.

But this has major implications for the local economies, especially of smaller places. As shops start to disappear so do the services or restaurants/bars connected to them.

Capitalism is brutal in its efficiency and there isn't much if anything that can be done to stop it, if people can get the same products at lower prices, they will.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#64

Post by eplatzek »

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…

What about the situation where a bunch of flower sellers end up on the same area of town?

Hotelling's Law (also known as the Principle of Minimum Differentiation or Hotelling’s Spatial Competition).

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#65

Post by golem14 »

vonnik wrote: post #44
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 strategy has worked well for both Shakespeare and Co. in Paris and Shakespeare and Sons in Berlin. Books + Bakery + Coffee. Both of course are set in living pedestrian cities. https://www.shakespeareandsons.com

It has not worked for Borders in Palo Alto.

But that was a chain, maybe other locations forced closured everywhere, and that Borders could have survived. I doubt it, however.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#66

Post by anal_reactor »

Good riddance.

I never really liked those small shops. Open Monday-Friday from 9 to 17 so a working person cannot really buy anything there. Prices usually 20% higher than online, minimal choice. It's not like they were selling something unique, they'd sell exactly same shit you'd see online, but at higher prices. The concept of "small shop being a part of the community" is completely foreign to me because what else you'd be doing in a shop other than walk in, buy, get out.

Supermarkets on the other hand, that's a different story. I live in the Netherlands and here we have strict laws pretty much about anything, including supermarkets. The goal is to prevent megastores from coming to existence which usually suck up all economic activity from the area. I have to say that the model is relatively successful - there are lots of mid-size supermarkets, so wherever you live, you're likely close to one.

But I have to say that it's another thing I miss from Poland. I fucking LOVED megastores. I could easily spend an hour walking through the cheese aisle and looking at all the products. For some inexplicable reason, despite the existence of megastores, the chain of small convenience stores Żabka is going through a renaissance - they're almost at every corner which means that if you're walking down the street and you're suddenly thirsty you're almost for sure close to Żabka. Another reason to go there is that they often offer products unavailable elsewhere - once I found sugar-free orange-vanillia coca-cola. I knew that god smiled to me that day. Oh, and typically they're open until 23:00.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#67

Post by golem14 »

alex_young wrote: post #12

I live in a town of fewer than 8k people. Our local toy store is not only thriving, it’s central to the community. People would rather shop there than go online. Why? Because they are a part of the community. At every farmer’s market or community event they have a booth giving out free glitter tattoos to children, and they employ several teenagers part time to wrap gifts (of course this is free too), apply tattoos, a…

It would be great to have a "rural revival" where it's worthwhile to go back to the howling old owl in the woods, hunting the horny back toad.

Maybe the wave of AI layoffs can actually make that happen. We would need a visionary planner like maybe Christopher Alexander and then an administration to deeply care and support such a development.

I suspect if I were forced to make such a move, I'd be initially very upset, but long term, I'd probably welcome the change.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#68

Post by salynchnew »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #49
armenarmen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Commercial is priced at a multiple of rent. So when an owner still has a loan on a building that was based off of multiple of 3000/mo and decides to rent it out for 1500/mo it effectively cuts the value of that building in half. Just an accounting issue for someone who owns it out right, but devastating for someone with a loan. I think this is why you’re seeing landlords offering multiple free months of rent no…

We had this experience with a local town centre where the high street basically died. Retailers priced out by high rents, which was fine when the economy was good and people were spending, but as soon as it took a dip there was nowhere to go and they had to shut up shop. And this mechanism was why; almost all the real estate was owned by funds and leveraged. Property values based on a multiplier of rent. They could w…

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.

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#69

Post by baxtr »

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…

So basically a tiny mall?

Re: The death of the brick and mortar toy store

#70

Post by TrackerFF »

Many years ago I found myself unemployed, and had a year where I pretty much took any job I could find. One of these were in a sorting facility for one of the largest shipping / postal companies.

On my first day, the very first thing I noticed was how a select few companies / online stores accounted for something like 80% of ALL the shipment that came through the facility: Clothes (with Zalando probably making up half of the shipments, just an endless stream of Zalando shipments...), make-up, and baby / kids toy stores. The last one kind of took me off guard, but then again, local toy stores have been dying for years.

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