My guess with Lowe's and Home Depot is that the things like a rake or paintbrushes are seen as a more emergent need. We only go out and get a rake right when we need a rake - but arguably nobody NEEDS a 60" TV, particularly not right this minute.
The downfall of Radio Shack
- Thread starter ruxCYtable
- Start date
My guess with Lowe's and Home Depot is that the things like a rake or paintbrushes are seen as a more emergent need. We only go out and get a rake right when we need a rake - but arguably nobody NEEDS a 60" TV, particularly not right this minute.
I'm barely old enough to remember when Radio Shack wasn't a oddly shaped cell phone kiosk. :biglaugh:
It's often pretty difficult to find things like rakes, paintbrushes, common hardware, etc. online appreciably cheaper than what Lowes or Home Depot sell them for. Also, sometimes, it's not convenient in the big picture to wait a day or two for parts or tools to come, like if you are in the middle of something and a part is missing or a tool breaks.
Target is for Women what Best Buy used to be for men, a place to wander around and see what they had a to grab a few things you probably didn't need. It is alive because a huge percentage of their shoppers are women who wander around the store killing time with their kids and buy whatever they see that interests them. My wife goes there to buy two things and comes home with six things. The next time she goes there it's to return two of the six things she bought the last time because she decided she didn't really need them (duh!) and then she comes home with six other things she didn't need, two of which she'll return the next time she goes. It's a vicious, psychotic circle.
Totally different industries. How many times have you been working on a project and realize you need something in order to proceed? Can't really order a bag of Quick-Crete online for a fence post you're building right now. When I fertilize the lawn or install brick garden edging I often buy the wrong amount and need something else ASAP.
Who is going to buy a 20lb bag of grass seed online? How about paint? What if the paint is one shade off? Do you wait another 2 days for the replacement?
The stuff people buy online is typically a one item purchase. We see how online grocery stores never really took off.
Or you're buying those things as part of a bigger project. Sure, you could probably order brushes ahead of time on-line, but who is going to order paint or a new light fixture from Amazon?
This is happening in a lot of places, and I'm predicting a bounce-back for brick and mortar stores. I recently bought a new house and thanks to it being a lemon, I've made countless trips to Home Depot. I've gotten the "we don't have it in the store, but you can get than in 20 different shades on our website". I needed a new vent register - they had two kinds in my size. White and brown. No real wood, no faux wood, not even plain, unfinished metal I could paint myself.
I've run into this issue numerous times the past four months, and I'm tired of hearing "you can get it on our website". I'm in the middle of the project, I want it now, and I'll pay a premium for it. Got the same answer at Walmart, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Target and a few furniture stores.
There's a huge discount furniture store here, and a huge electronics store (Fry's, which is awesome). I've gone to both of the over and over, and every time I've went I have bought something including a few impulse buys. I could have gotten it cheaper online, but I didn't or couldn't wait for some of it.
I order tons of stuff from Amazon - I've been a Prime member for years and have at least one delivery a week. That said, the stores are taking it too far with their shrinking inventory. The Best Buy here looks like ghost town, half of the store is open space.
It's obvious that online purchasing is here to stay, but people will pay a premium to be able to walk into a store, buy what they need and walk out. I believe the model will balance itself out.
I'm not talking how much an item costs for the consumer, I'm talking about how much it costs the retailer to sell it. Amazon has a huge advantage in that they don't have the labor or property expenses that a brick-and-mortar establishment does.
I needed a resistor for a project I was working on. I am not allowed to buy it from the student supply store in Coover because I was not taking a class and not an engineering major.
So I went to Radio Shack. Cost me 50 cents. Please find a resistor that I can have shipped to me for 50 cents.
I'll wait.
Would your typical home depot really have stocked every possible variation of an item pre-internet? Seems to me for the home improvement/hardware stores that "check our website" has just replaced "we can order that for you"
Maybe I should be glad that my wife hates shopping and just wants to get in and out of a store with what she needed to get and doesn't bring home stupid stuff she later decides she doesn't want. I'm just using Target as an example, I'm not claiming they have the best deals on everything. We're very price conscious especially with larger purchases or things we buy frequently so for certain items we know we can get the best price from certain places and Amazon can actually cost more for some items you can just go down the street to Target or Wal-Mart and get. Plus if you think about it, Target is getting you into the store with Cartwheel app discounts and their 5% off RedCard and chances are while you are there you probably are going to buy other items that aren't at a discount so in the big picture they probably are going to ring up more sales by getting you in the door with some good deals and making up for some of the profit margins with the other items you decide to purchase there too.
Here' my example about smart shopping, had to replace a TV recently. Target had the best deal on sale for $219.99 plus with the 15% cartwheel app promotion and my 5% red card discount it was just under $186 before tax. Same TV on Amazon is priced at $222, and Best Buy for $262. I'm sure we can all find 1 particular item and price them out at different places and depending on the item the same store is not going to have the best deal for everything.
Pre-Internet, Radio Shack used to practically demand your address whenever you bought anything, even a couple of batteries, just so they could get you on their catalog mailing list. I can remember arguing several times with the clerk that if they want the sale, drop it, because they weren't getting my name and address.
You're right, online retail doesn't have those same expenses. I have no idea what you're questioning then. Unless it's "How can brick and mortar stay open when it's cheaper to do it all online?" To that, I would say that brick and mortar sells the same stuff in the store that you probably don't need at the moment, but could use later at a higher cost and than online retail. Online retail has ridiculous prices of things that you need at the moment to make up for selling other things cheaper. Also, when I go into a store, I'm more likely to buy something else as I see it, or see a display for something related to it (ie: I always end up looking at the cd and dvd sections just to see if there's something there interesting). I don't do that when I'm looking at things online.
Because the stuff you buy at Home Depot and Lowe's is stuff you usually are planning on using right away. If I am working on a project and need additional stuff to complete it, I am not hitting the pause button on it for three days while I wait for the stuff to ship to me just so I can save a dollar when I can simply pay a dollar more and get the thing I need and be done with the project right away.
That you still look at CDs and even DVDs tells me you're probably not the target demographic that most online retailers cater to, and online retail has a big advantage over brick and mortar stores when it comes to getting you to look at related items (just about every site has a "you might also like..." algorithm that identifies and displays what other items you might be interested in buying...and it's based on what you've actually viewed or purchased).
My original point was that Target's 5% in-store discount does nothing to address the larger issue of the company simply having higher operating costs than Amazon.
And there are also more and more brick and mortar stores that will match a price from an online store and you don't have to wait to get it. Nebraska Furniture Mart here in Omaha will match any price, including from Amazon.com.
He said someone does it cheaper or faster. I would argue with certain things. Are they economically viable things? Not really but there are some products that Radio Shack is better for.
