re: #307 wheat-dogg

Sears, Kmart and Macy’s are all shuttering dozens of stores. It’s the end of the road for many big department stores. Target seems to be hanging on, though.

As for Craftsman tools, they were great. I’m not sure how they are now, since it’s been a while since I bought any new ones. Hopefully Stanley Black and Decker will maintain quality.

Macy’s announced the closure last year of 100+ stores; yesterday’s announcement identified the specific stores in part of that round of closures. So, this isn’t exactly new - guess they wanted to see how those stores would do during the holiday season. The one closing closest to us (Wayne’s Preakness store) is in an area that already has several major Macy’s locations - Wayne has two Macy’s plus a furniture store (the other stores at Willowbrook Mall). Meanwhile, there are Macy’s stores in Paramus (2), plus at Short Hills Mall. Those are high performing malls, so they have foot traffic and location going for them.

We’re going to see a lot more dead malls before the decade is out - along with attempts to resuscitate them with transition to open air concepts or redevelopment away from anchor tenant locations.

So, while the Internet is sapping department store sales, the reality is people still like to buy stuff they can see/feel/try on. The problem is that Macy’s doesn’t exactly provide a good value, even when you get their coupons, which have so many exclusions, they aren’t useful (compared to Kohl’s which allows coupons on practically all items sold in the store, though Kohl’s also had a disappointing Christmas season).