Day 133 of Nat'l Emergency: Digging Up Dirt Is Dirty Business

The sins of the fathers taint the acts of the sons no matter how noble the latters’ causes may be. Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” showed us that reality with the persecution of the St. Evrémonde family during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Charles Darnay was found guilty of oppressing the populace even though he renounced his family title and the nobles who killed and otherwise exploited the peasants.   

And so we now are witnessing the persecution of The New York Times because ancestors of the founding family were slaveholders. Had their coffin draped by the Confederate flag. Were member of the Daughters of the Confederacy (https://nypost.com/2020/07/18/the-family-that-owns-the-new-york-times-were-slaveholders-goodwin/?utm_source=url_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons).

To be sure, The Times has been cast as guilty of a supreme journalistic sin, that of foregoing objectivity, quashing dissenting voices while permitting bullying of any staffer who deviated from the corporate line.

Never mind that today’s Times champions civil rights. By publishing a special report last year on the  400th anniversary of slavery in the British colonies and laying the foundational reason for the break with the king on perpetuation of slavery, The Times is accused of misrepresenting history while ignoring its own involvement in the despicable practice.

The article demanding genetic purity from The Times was written by a former Times staffer of 16 years. It appeared in The New York Post, a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump. Murdoch also owns The Wall Street Journal, arch rival of The Times. Could The Journal benefit from knocking The Times off its lofty perch? No doubt.

That being a real possibility the truth of slaveholding by Times family ancestors is not diminished. But is it damning?

Slavery was part of colonial DNA. It continued into the 19th century even in northern states. New York, for example, did not outlaw all forms of slavery until July 4, 1827. Among northern states only New Jersey permitted slavery longer.

The Ochs family, which bought and reformatted The Times into the preeminent paper in the United States if not the world, had its roots in the Antebellum South. They owned slaves.

I find it increasingly difficult to accept the wholesale tarring of family descendants, especially when one considers how the newspaper over the last 50 years has been a steadfast champion of press freedoms, civil rights and has been a bulwark of defense against abuses of power on local, state and national levels. 

One could surely legitimately argue that The Times has shed some objectivity in its coverage of Donald Trump. That it holds Israel to a higher standard than Palestinians and Arab countries. That its Op-Ed page is mostly a forum for progressive, not conservative, ideas.

Even if guilty on all counts The Times cannot be equated with the symbols of the Confederacy protesters seek to topple. Those statues and the stars and bars flag are symbols of rebellion against our duly elected government. They were traitors unworthy of any reverence or fealty, no matter how valiantly or competently they fought.

My lens of history, of historical perspective, is biased. I admit it. Friends and relatives swear by The Journal as a better newspaper.

Perhaps it is. I don’t read it often enough to make an assessment. Same thing with The Washington Post. They are both owned by tycoons.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has invested heavily in The Post to restore it to its Pentagon Papers/Watergate era prominence.

But in achieving his rank as the richest person in the world Bezos put lots of companies out of business and lots of people out of work. My magazine’s readership included many of those companies and people affected. I derive only some comfort from his resuscitation of The Post.

From Rupert Murdoch I take absolutely no comfort. Anchored by Fox News, his media empire is largely responsible for the distrust many Americans feel toward their country and the resultant emergence of Donald Trump as an avatar of transformation based on misinformation, conspiracy theories and outright lies.

The Times is not pitch perfect. But it still retains a voice that is noteworthy and dedicated to the improvement of our country, despite the less than perfect history of its founding family’s members. 

Day 3 of Lockdown Since Trump Declared National Emergency

COVID-19 is having a reverse effect on my calendar. Instead of filling up appointments and social engagements in my calendar, I am crossing out commitments and obligations.

With no symptoms of the novel coronavirus, Gilda and I have initiated a self-imposed quarantine, meaning we are restricting visits with friends and family while making only necessary trips to stores. 

I’m supposed to get a haircut on Thursday. I think I will reschedule it. We’ve asked our house cleaners to forego their regular cleaning but have arranged for them to receive their customary remuneration. Those who can afford it, and thankfully we can, have a societal obligation to make sure the less fortunate are not overly affected by the curtailment of daily norms. 

I go to Costco about once a week. Given the huge lines there at present—itself a threat of exposure to the virus—I am taking a break from Costco. However that presents a problem with my monthly purchase for the food bank for the hungry and homeless. Somehow I will manage. 

There will be a corporate toll added to the human toll of COVID-19. Undercapitalized companies are in danger. Unless overwhelming, speedy federal action is taken, commercial landlords will demand rents, as banks will demand loan payments from them. Even with Small Business Administration loans, timing—processing paperwork and receipt of monies—will be a life or death matter for many companies.

Banks will demand mortgage payments from homeowners. Not every mortgagee will work for a company that extends their paycheck when the business is closed or under reduced production.

Line staff in stores, restaurants, assembly lines, you name it, will be most affected as they often have the least socked away in “rainy day” accounts.

In announcing his company’s bankruptcy filing last week, Michael Modell, CEO of Modell’s Sporting Goods, highlighted factors that felled his family’s 131-year old enterprise. They included a shorter holiday selling season, a warmer than normal winter, online competitors, especially Amazon, lackluster records for most New York sports team that inhibited purchases by fans, and, the coronavirus pandemic that kept people from shopping. 

Modell’s wasn’t the first retailer to file for bankruptcy protection. It surely won’t be the last to do so in the coming weeks. 

I’m glad I am retired from Chain Store Age, especially during this time of contraction and upheaval in the retail industry. 

With Gilda also retired we try to take walks most days. Today we passed a house that was disposing of a toy stroller and two-sided easel board with a post-it note saying, “Take me.” We didn’t need them for our grandkids but friends of ours could use them, so I drove back after we came home and tossed them into my trunk. 

I left them on their porch and called. Why didn’t I knock on their door? Good question. It’s because they were under a real 14-day quarantine. 

Last week grandpa took his granddaughter to a music class. Two days later he received a note saying the music teacher tested positive. How stupid of that teacher to carelessly expose children and their parents/grandparents to the coronavirus. There is no way he could not have been symptomatic at the time of class.

The only way we are going to defeat the violent spread of this killer is by being smart and considerate. 

Why Are So Many Stores Closing?

Perhaps you’re wondering why soooo many chain store retailers are closing sooooo many stores, especially after what has been hailed as a gonzo holiday season. To be sure, after every New Year retailers have always pruned deadbeat locations. But the numbers going into the trash bin of history are dizzying. More than 9,000 store units closed last year. A higher number is predicted for 2020 (https://moneywise.com/a/chains-closing-the-most-stores-in-2020).

The names coming off marquees across the country include some venerable labels: Sears, Kmart, Macy’s, Forever 21, Pier 1 Imports, Gap, Chico’s, Bed Bath & Beyond. Why is the contraction reaching unparalleled heights? Though each chain has its own problems, there are common threads that have unraveled throughout the retail industry.

Start with the fact that in the United States we are overstored (forgive me for not providing actual statistics, but after 32 years covering the retail industry as an editor and publisher of Chain Store Age I am taking retirement privilege and just providing trend analysis. You’ll have to trust I know what I am talking about).

How did we get overstored? No retailer thinks their store is not desired by voracious consumers. So when real estate developers pitched less than A+ locations they signed on the bottom line, sometimes induced to do so as the price of landing a truly A+ spot in a different coveted shopping venue owned or operated by the same developer. The developers, of course, needed those tenants to get their construction loans. Thus, it is no wonder that stores in secondary market are closing and with them secondary market shopping centers.

Everyone wants to blame Amazon and other Internet retailers and before them Walmart, Target, Home Depot and an assortment of big box retailers. Yes, they all contributed to the blacking out of storefronts on Main Streets and in strip centers. They killed off lots of independent merchants and weaker chain stores. As for Internet retailing, it still accounts for just about 15% of all sales.

So what’s behind the tsunami of store closings? Lousy merchandising choices, for one. For apparel and fashion home goods stores, if the wrong stuff is put up for sale customers will stay away in droves. As rents and labor costs are high, the combination with the cost of goods put retailers in a swimming pool of red ink.

Many chain stores have high levels of debt because private equity firms bought them by leveraging retail assets, mostly their leases or the land they owned for their stores, warehouses and distribution centers. When sales fail to meet budget expectations debt payments cannot be met. Suppliers refrain from selling them merchandise because if a company files for Chapter XI bankruptcy protection the law allows creditors to claw back all payments made in the prior 90 days. Suppliers fear being paid pennies on the dollar for their products. That’s why the first clue of a pending bankruptcy filing is insufficient product on shelves or clothing racks.

Failure to keep abreast of state of the art technology and distribution efficiencies are more harbingers of doom. Often it’s because companies did not have the cash flow to make the necessary investments. It’s a melting snowball effect in a red hot competitive industry driven by shoppers who demand instant gratification.

Let’s not overlook the polarization of our population. Not our political divide. The economic bifurcation. The fastest growing retail formats are dollar stores and food discounters like Aldi and Lidl, both European imports, that cater to families on tight budgets. Companies that serve middle income consumers are being squeezed.

Being a high end retailer doesn’t guarantee success. Barneys New York failed because of the aforementioned heavy debt load strapped on it by private equity owners. Toys “R” Us, which knocked off almost all toy competitors, succumbed as well from its private equity debt load. Toys “R” Us was never the price leader. It based its success on being in stock on the most wanted toys. When Walmart and Target matched Toys “R” Us on inventory management the game was lost. Walmart and Target had many more stores than Toys “R” Us in most markets, making it more convenient for shoppers to find what they wanted in their stores. Location, location, location. Three keys to success. Or failure.

Can you still make it in retailing? A resounding, emphatic, YES! Required are merchandise tailored to a specific audience; systems that provide seamless customer fulfillment and support; dedicated, driven staff from the top down; sufficient capital, and even more capital; savvy marketing including an Internet presence; and those historical three keys—location, location, location.

Successful retailers make customers their unpaid promoters. Think Trader Joe’s or The Container Store. A successful retailer would be missed if it closed its doors, missed not because it was nearby or a long time presence in a community, but rather because it brought excitement and fulfillment to the often mundane task of buying and selling everyday goods and services plus the occasional frills that make shopping essential and enjoyable.

The Streets of New York Are Just Not the Same

Every weekday a copy of Gothamist Daily arrives by email. Gothamist, its Website says, is “about New York City news, arts and events, and food, brought to you by New York Public Radio.”

More often than not I just scan the headlines, but one tickled my interest last week. Written by Jeremiah Moss, the article was entitled, “The Diamond District: ‘One Of The Last New York Blocks Left In Manhattan.’” 

Moss is the pen name of Griffin Hansbury, author of Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul and creator of the blog Vanishing New York. Here are two links, the first to the article in Gothamist (https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/diamond-district-midtown-flavor?utm_source=WNYC+%2B+Gothamist&utm_campaign=aa77cb25e2-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65dbec786b-aa77cb25e2-85839029&mc_cid=aa77cb25e2&mc_eid=dab0647c64&utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=shared_email), the second to a fascinating profile of Moss published in Financial Review (https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/jeremiah-moss-the-man-who-wants-to-save-the-new-york-everyone-loves-20171030-gzardi). 

I share these with you because my family has a link to the Diamond District, the stretch of West 47th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. The wedding band I wear on my left hand, the wedding band and engagement ring Gilda has worn, the same for my brother’s wife and my sister, and the baubles that adorned our mother, all came from the Diamond District. But not from just any merchant of jewels along that street of treasures. Ours came from the shop our mother’s sister, Aunt Vicki, and her husband, Uncle Harry, had at 55 West 47th Street. They had prime real estate in the Diamond Exchange building—a window kiosk to dazzle the imagination of any lady and her paramour. 

Fifty years ago, when I was most familiar with 47th Street, the Diamond Exchange housed a honeycombed floor of activity. It might still do so today. I do not know. Aunt Vicki and Uncle Harry relocated their business to Los Angeles in the 1970s. 

For a more personal perspective, I emailed the Gothamist article to one of their sons, my cousin Stanley. Also a jeweler, Stanley shared his memories vis-a-vis those of Jeremiah Moss:

“Interestingly....this is obviously the 47th Street of today....not the 1960’s and 70’s.

“When we were there, there was no falafel and such. It was Berger’s deli, the Smokehouse restaurant or the Blarney Stone. 

“The Persians came to America, especially Great Neck (where his family lived), in the late 1970’s, the Israelis in the 1980’s. 

“The character of the street changed dramatically, both the people and the jewelry itself. 

“Many of the sons of successful jewelers actually moved off the street and into offices upstairs, away from the “new” riffraff. LOL 

“By the late 1990’s, the old timers, the Eastern European Jews....many with numbers tattooed on their arms were gone. Passed away or retired to Florida. 

“Walking down 47th Street is just not the same.”

Broadway Blues: I could say the same for Broadway from 8th Street to Houston Street. It was on that stretch of pavement that my father’s factory jumped from one address to the next as his leases came up every five years or so forcing him to relocate either because the rent became too high or the landlord, in many cases New York University, opted to turn factory lofts into upscale apartments. 

718 Broadway. Then 692 Broadway (above Tower Records). Then 683 Broadway. Then 611 Broadway (above what is now a Crate & Barrel). From the mid 1950s to the late 1970s the factory ricocheted along Broadway. It was one of many owned by small manufacturers sewing lingerie and knitwear in buildings 10-12 stories high with service establishments on the ground floor. 

When residents, not businesses, started populating the buildings, NYU turned street level space into a shopping and restaurant mecca. Even Bloomingdale’s chose to open a store on Broadway as the retail district expanded to Canal Street. 

A mall without doors. As my cousin Stan said of 47th Street, Broadway today is just not the same. 

The Rent’s Too Damn High: Sunday’s New York Times provided another sad glimpse of the changing Manhattan landscape. Chelsea Convenience Hardware is closing, a victim mostly of a steep rent increase and the evolving way consumers shop (https://nyti.ms/2QGNbwA).

After reading the article, take a few moments to read some of the comments. Mom and Pop stores close not just because of rent increases, or Amazon, or competition from big box retailers. Or maybe because their service and selection were sub-par. Or a combination of all factors. 

But whatever the reason(s), one cannot disagree that the landscape of a neighborhood changes. It’s just not the same. 

Questions for Democrats From Me and The Times

To get an Op-Ed piece published in The New York Times you have to give the paper a three-business-day window to review your submission. The Times says it will contact you if they plan to use it. Otherwise, you’re free to publish it anywhere else it might be deemed worthy.

Last Friday night I emailed to The Times 10 questions that should be asked of each Democratic presidential hopeful during next week’s debates. Apparently, great minds think alike, because The Times had been working on a similarly themed idea which it unveiled Wednesday. The Times formulated 18 questions to which 21 candidates provided video responses (https://nyti.ms/2NbBe1Z). 

Having not heard back from The Times by Wednesday night, herewith are my questions (since expanded to a dozen): 

1. Will you support the eventual Democratic party nominee and not run a third party candidacy?

2. What will be your first five executive orders upon taking office?

3. Given what we now know about Donald Trump’s activities before and after the 2016 election, would you support a criminal prosecution of Donald Trump?

4. What action by the Trump administration has most enraged you and how would you counteract it?

5. If the Senate remains in Republican control, how would you counter Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s stranglehold on legislative affairs moving forward?

6. What steps would you take to improve our trade position vis-a-vis China?

7. How would you stem the flow of undocumented immigrants across our southern border?

8. Which country or entity or concept is America’s number one enemy today and in the future?

9. Should the Palestinians have their own state or should they become citizens of Israel and other Middle Eastern states where they reside?

10. What is your position on the impact and viability of technology companies, banks and investment houses that have grown “too big to fail.” Should they be broken up or more intensely regulated? 

11. Are some Afro-Americans entitled to reparations? How would you define reparations?

12. What steps would you take to improve health care?

For those who chose not to click on the link to The Times feature, here’s a list of its questions (added benefit: each question is linked to the candidate responses). You decide whose queries, mine or The Times, were more incisive. 

1. In an ideal world, would anyone own handguns?

2. Would your focus be improving the Affordable Care Act or replacing it with single payer?

3. Do you think it’s possible for the next president to stop climate change?

4. Do you think Israel meets international standards of human rights?

5. Who is your hero, and why?

6. Would there be American troops in Afghanistan at the end of your first term?

7. How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

8. Do you think illegal immigration is a major problem in the United States?

9. Where would you go on your first international trip as president?

10. Describe the last time you were embarrassed. Why?

11. Do you think President Trump has committed crimes in office?

12. Do you support or oppose the death penalty?

13. Should tech giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google be broken up?

14. Are you open to expanding the size of the Supreme Court?

15. When did your family first arrive in the United States, and how?

16. What is your comfort food on the campaign trail?

17. What do you do to relax?

18. Does anyone deserve to have a billion dollars?

My Letter in The Times Lights the Way

It took more than two weeks, but The New York Times finally published my letter to the editor, online Sunday and in Monday’s printed edition. 

Back on April 12 two of Thomas Edison’s great-grandsons opined in The Times that “the Department of Energy now wants to roll back new efficiency standards (for light bulbs) signed into law by President George W. Bush and updated, as required, during the Obama administration” (https://nyti.ms/2VDXgtT).

The proposed withdrawal is another example of Donald Trump’s demonic compulsion to eliminate any vestige of progressive action by his predecessors, especially if it smacks of any environmental benefit to reduce the impact of climate change.  

The Edison progeny advocated public and congressional opposition to any plan by the Energy Department to narrow the scope of energy saving standards. 

It was in that context that I sent my letter to The Times. With slight editing to my original submission, The Times ran the following:

“We cannot rely on the Trump administration to do the right thing when it comes to enforcing light bulb energy standards. Instead, private enterprise must lead the way.

“Large chain stores—Walmart, Target, Kmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, Costco and Ace Hardware, as well as Amazon—should exert their public service commitment by not buying or stocking less energy efficient incandescent light bulbs.

“Retailers can shine a positive light on the future direction of our country.”

Naturally, not everyone is on board with any plan that would deny consumers the opportunity to buy cheaper 100-watt incandescent bulbs compared to more expensive L.E.D.s. In response to a friend who brought up the issue after seeing my letter, I wrote back, 

“Yes, it will cost more and the poor would be disproportionately hurt. But just as we have required seat belts in cars at a higher cost, just as we require food safety inspections that raise the price of food, just as we have tolls on roads that make travel costlier, there are some mandates that are put in place for the common good. Call it totalitarianism. Or socialism. Or saving the planet for our grandchildren. Doing nothing is not an option for long term survival.”

Here’s how the Edisons put it: “Few actions can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that are warming the planet as cheaply and easily as replacing energy-wasting bulbs with highly efficient ones. The group (the Natural Resources Defense Council) estimates that if every household in the United States replaced just one old bulb with an L.E.D., the country’s overall electric bill would be cut by more than $5 billion in 10 years, and two million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution would be avoided. 

“The savings are so big because the average American household has around 40 lighting sockets, and many still employ energy-wasting bulbs. We need efficiency standards to spur more innovation and ensure that our store shelves carry new bulbs reflecting the latest technology.

“Regrettably, special interests have reared their heads once again. Big bulb manufacturers supported by the Energy Department prefer to take the cheap, inefficient and environmentally harmful path for short-term profits. They would sacrifice our common good for their selfish greed.”

This was not my first letter published in The Times. Eleven years ago, when Allianz was reported by The Times to be near to securing the naming rights to the then new Meadowlands stadium where the New York Giants and Jets would play, I revealed the link between the company and its history of insuring Nazi death camps. To its credit Allianz already had disclosed on its website its association with the Nazi regime. But The Times article merely identified Allianz as a German financial services company (no doubt that is how the company identifies itself in press releases).

After my letter was published The Times followed up with a major story entitled “Naming Rights and Historic Wrongs.” Less than a week after my letter appeared, after intense public rejection of the Allianz overture, Allianz abandoned its bid. Only then did MetLife step in to secure the naming rights (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/01/chain-of-one-person-events.html).

Seeing the Future But Not Always the Present

I watched or listened on the radio to 90% of Michael Cohen’s Wednesday appearance before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The most significant part I missed was Cohen’s closing statement. Here’s how John Dean, White House counsel under Richard Nixon and the man who famously told him that the Watergate coverup represented a “cancer” growing on the presidency, described Cohen’s parting words: 

“He thanked the members, and again accepted responsibility for his bad behavior. He then told the legislators, ‘Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today.’ This was the most troubling—actually, chilling—thing he said in his five hours before the committee.” (https://nyti.ms/2XzehH8)

I couldn’t agree more. But I was not surprised by Cohen’s dire prediction, as back on January 30 I postulated the same possibility, er, probability. Here’s how I put it: 

“But with 2020 looming and his polling numbers down, Trump is now in a position to do real damage to the republic should he lose reelection. He would continue, after all, to be president for more than two months until January 20, 2021, a lame duck in name but not in power to respond to emergencies. 

“It is not a far reach to think Trump would invoke executive powers to declare a rigged election created a national emergency. Consider the border wall contretemps a potential test case before the Supreme Court of his authority to enact executive rule.” (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2019/01/trumps-next-constitutional-crisis.html)

I take no pleasure in being among the first to counsel wariness about our democratic future. But it is reassuring to know others are similarly pre-occupied. I only hope they are preparing plans to insure my forecast does not come true. 

Wannabe-in-Chief: His detractors have likened him to a would-be dictator, what with his cozying up to actual despots like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, taking their word over the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies and diplomatic corps. 

But now, Donald Trump has added multi-hour oratory to his autocratic repertoire. Appearing at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference,  just hours after flying home from a fruitless summit in Hanoi with the North Korean potentate, Trump emulated authoritarian leaders like Fidel Castro in delivering a two hour-plus highlight reel review of his campaign, presidency and bouts with unsatisfactory staffers and runaway investigators (https://www.vox.com/2019/3/2/18247712/trump-cpac-bizarre-rant).

Sadly, Trump’s performance was not the most troubling part of CPAC. Rather, it was the fawning, sycophantic, hyperbolic approval he received from an audience that in the past cherished American values but now has been hoodwinked by a wannabe absolute monarch. 

My Blindspot: Of course, my vision is not perfect. Case in point—For more than 30 years I had my hair cut at Young & Classy, a salon on Central Avenue in Scarsdale. After Young & Classy closed down more than a year ago my haircutter Rosie moved to a different salon. I followed her there.

A few months ago Gilda accompanied me. While I was getting my hair washed Rosie told Gilda that the spa and massage parlor next to the Young & Classy location was raided by police because it turned out to be a front for a den of illicit sexual activity. Throughout the day men could be seen coming and going from the storefront next door. 

Who knew? Who knew that right next door, while I was getting shorn, other men were getting…pleasured? 

Illegal massage parlors have been in the news a lot lately, since the arrest of Robert Kraft, owner of the seemingly perennial Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, as part of a roundup of patrons. Kraft denies soliciting sexual activity while a customer of Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida. 

Sexual indiscretion of another kind, the extra-marital kind, has engulfed another billionaire, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the world’s richest human. His affair and breakup of his 25-year marriage have become fodder for tabloid journalists and, to his extent the actions could have an impact on Amazon’s businesses, also for mainstream news outlets (https://nyti.ms/2EIX9qP).

In case you’re wondering, here’s why I have not previously commented on Amazon—unlike many other retailers, I met Jeff Bezos only once or twice. Actually, to say I met him would be a stretch. I was part of a large press and securities analyst pool. Basically, the only takeaway I have from Bezos is the sound of his laugh. It is among the strangest noises one could hear. It is more than a hacking sound. It is loud. It reverberates. There is nothing infectious about it. Were it not for his billions and his obvious brilliance there would be multiple reasons to distance oneself from the sound. 

Old Names in the News: Sears, Zakheim, Saporito

Did you get all the presents you wished for during this holiday season? I purposely chose the word “wish” as it conjures up the image of the Sears Wish Book, the once-giant retailer’s annual encyclopedia of gifts for all ages. “In 1968,” according to Sears Archives, “the Wish Book totaled 605 pages, with 225 pages devoted to toys and 380 pages to gifts for adults.”

During this all important shopping season, when merchants often garner most of their sales and profits,  several articles have surfaced about the fall of Sears (and sister company, Kmart) from iconic to catatonic (https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/12/19/sears-plans-more-store-closures-as-challenges-mount-for-lampert-bid-.html and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-20/layoffs-loom-large-as-banks-weigh-funding-lampert-s-sears-bid). 

Today, Friday, CNBC reported Sears will shutter 80 more Sears and Kmart stores on top of the 182 closings it announced after it filed for bankruptcy protection October 15 (https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/12/28/sears-closing-80-more-stores-in-march-faces-possible-liquidation.html). 

Amazon and other Internet retailers are being blamed for the truncation and potential demise of the once largest retailer in the world. Amazon et al might be hammering the nail into Sears’ coffin, but the truth is Sears was fading into obscurity years before Jeff Bezos conceptualized Amazon in 1994. 

Consider the January 1980 edition of Chain Store Age. The cover story: “Why America Is Not Shopping Sears.” In 15 pages backed by extensive consumer research, articles detailed the troubles Sears faced, some of its own making, some because of newer, more focused competition, some the result of new market conditions including the proliferation of large shopping centers and the elimination of retail price maintenance laws that allowed brand name goods to be sold at discount prices. Shoppers no longer had to wait for sales of major appliances, consumer electronics, sporting goods, tools and other desired merchandise. They were available every day at the discount store located closer to their homes. 

Though still the largest retailer in the world back in 1980, Sears could not maintain that position as more nimble, more focused retailers took bites out of its market share. Best Buy. Circuit City. Home Depot. Lowe’s. Toys “R” Us. Sports Authority. Target. Wal-Mart. Even Kmart snatched sales from Sears. 

Sears reacted by turning commissioned sales people into hourly workers. Bad decision. They lacked incentive to sell. 

Apparel never was a Sears strong point. Baby boomers wouldn’t be caught dead wearing Sears clothing, not when the mall had dozens, even a hundred, specialty stores offered fashion right styles. 

Besides, walking into most Sears stores was like entering a mausoleum. Whereas department store mannequins were freshly dressed and lifelike, Sears mannequins appeared lifeless. Store decor and lighting were old fashioned and stark. There was no drama inside. It was as if Sears executives had never heard of the concept of retailtainment. 

When Sears filed for bankruptcy protection I posed the following: “Will Sears and Kmart be salvaged or scuttled? Ask yourself these questions: When was the last time you shopped Sears or Kmart? If one or both stores disappeared, would you notice? Would you miss them?”

(https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/search?q=sears)

Nothing has transpired to make me change my opinion.

Designer Prices: I have always eschewed clothing that outwardly displays a designer’s name or brand logo. I am okay with wearing Adolpho blazers or Givenchy suits with the labels discreetly sewn onto inside breast pockets (though since my retirement I rarely wear suits). 

Outward chauvinism is not my style. In fact, I have long advocated a reversal of the standard bill of fare. Rather than charging more for a polo shirt or pair of jeans that shout out the designer’s or brand’s name, I believe such walking billboards should be sold at a discount as payment for the publicity they provide.   

Two of my cousins are optometrists. As their practices are in Philadelphia and Jacksonville it was not convenient for me to patronize them when I needed new eyeglasses. 

But I did pick their brains about the differences between designer and generic frames you might find in a mass market optical store such as Lenscrafters or Visionworks. 

Their responses: If you are concerned about the quality of a generic frame, don’t be. If you find a generic frame you like, buy it. Designer frames may provide a design that intrigues you, but the cost will be much higher. 

Their bottom line—find a lower priced generic frame. 

Which brings us to the recent scam Payless ShoeSource performed on fashionistas in Los Angeles. Payless tricked them into believing its $19.99 man-made women’s shoes were leather, designed by Bruno Palessi and worth hundreds of dollars. Here’s a Washington Post article to click on in case you missed the charade: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/30/they-had-us-fooled-inside-paylesss-elaborate-prank-dupe-people-into-paying-shoes/?utm_term=.46128e293bcc

Degrees of Separation: Many of my blog postings are generated by current events that bring up incidents or people/companies from my past (the Sears piece above is an example). 

So I was doubly stimulated when reading The New York Times on line in the middle of the night earlier this week.

The first article, a profile of acting secretary of defense Patrick Shanahan, referenced “Dov Zakheim, a former top Pentagon official in the George W. Bush administration” (https://nyti.ms/2Rbn95i).

Dov and I were elementary school classmates at Yeshiva Rambam in Brooklyn some 60 years ago. He, and I, were considered Talmudic scholars by our teachers. Apart from his service in the Pentagon, Dov went on to become a rabbi. 

The second article was an Op-Ed piece entitled “Trump’s King Minus Touch,” by Bill Saporito, a contributor to The Times editorial board (https://nyti.ms/2Rfxj4Q). Bill and I worked together on Chain Store Age Supermarkets 40 years ago. He left to become a photographer for a Pittsburgh paper, if memory serves me right, and afterward began a long association with various Time Inc. magazines including Fortune and Time. 

Seeing their names in print is a nice way to keep up with old acquaintances. 

Convenience vs. Affordability, The Ethical Dilemmas of the World We Live In

“Time and again, when confronted with the choice between convenience and affordability and the less tangible benefits of emotional intimacy, humans have opted for the former.”

Let’s face it. Aside from living in a material world, we have succumbed to a life of leisure in lieu of exertion. We no longer get up to change the TV channel. We don’t manually roll down car windows anymore. We don’t open the freezer door to get ice. We live in a push button world. 

Mattresses no longer have to be turned every month. For most products we don’t have to trek to the store. Our exercise, instead, is to pick up the Internet or mail order package from the front porch or apartment lobby. 

The premise having been set, if not accepted, please contemplate the shared meaning of three articles I pass along for your edification. The first is from a philosopher, S. Matthew Liao. Writing an Op-Ed in The New York Times, Liao wondered aloud (if you can do so in print) if one has a moral duty to jettison one’s relationship with Facebook given its unconscionable and inexcusable behavior in the 2016 presidential elections and in other activities that have undermined democracy in America and abroad (https://nyti.ms/2zqSUx8). 

Aside from posting my blogs to Facebook, I have a financial interest in professor Liao’s opinion. My broker talked me into buying some Facebook stock shortly after it went public. Am I a silent sinner in the debasement of democratic values? 

It’s not every day, but hardly a week goes by that a box with a smiley face on the cardboard exterior doesn’t land on our front porch. I spent almost all of my journalism career in support of physical retail stores. Chain Store Age, by its very name, heralded my bias. Though the magazine covered mail order and Internet retailers, our first allegiance was to brick and mortar stores. 

When Amazon erupted on the scene, it was as an attack on book stores, most prominently exemplified by Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton Booksellers, Borders, Books-a-Million, Crown Books, to name but a handful.

Now, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is ranked the wealthiest man in the world as his creation sells virtually all types of merchandise. And through Amazon Prime I download programs not available on cable or basic television stations.

With bigness comes inevitable vilification. From the Web news site Vox, here’s an article suggesting the time is ripe to cancel one’s Amazon Prime subscription (https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2018/11/26/18112769/amazon-prime-cancel).

Could I really give up watching the upcoming second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? Or pay for shipping on all those purchases? And what would become of all those UPS and FedEx, not to mention USPS, delivery men and women who rely on Amazon to keep them on the road? 

On the one hand, the Vox article correctly notes Amazon’s history of “monopolistic practices to tax avoidance, poor treatment of both white- and blue-collar workers, union-busting, environmental damage, and most recently, the year-long publicity stunt of HQ2, a bad-faith ploy to extract private data from US cities that ended with Amazon plopping its supposedly economy-boosting offices into the two most established markets on the East Coast.”

On the other hand, the history of retailing, and for that matter almost every industry, is that market leaders are attacked. As Sears in its heyday was, and then Walmart was and still is, Amazon is scrutinized for practices that virtually all other retailers undertake in their own spheres. Target might emit a nicer aura in which to shop, but it treats its workers no better than Walmart, or Amazon. 

So I swallow any bile I might have toward Amazon and continue to log on. As long as I’m getting value for my dollar, I will continue to do so.

The third article presents in stark terms perhaps the penultimate consequence of society’s acceptance of the depreciating value of human labor. From Vox, here’s an article that asks, “Sex doll brothels are now a thing. What will happen to real-life sex workers?” (https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/26/18113019/sex-doll-brothels-legal-sex-work?_gl=1*13fjbq5*)

Returning to the opening quote taken from the sex doll article, here’s an added line to it: “Time and again, when confronted with the choice between convenience and affordability and the less tangible benefits of emotional intimacy, humans have opted for the former. There’s no reason to think that the sex industry will prove the exception to the rule.”

And to think, just a few short paragraphs ago I was worried about the future of truck drivers!

Will Trump's End Justify His Means?

Maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump has a sense of history. After all, despite all his bravura claims about the efficiency and accomplishments of his presidency, he has yet to claim he has “made the trains run on time” (editor’s note—for those unfamiliar with the claim, google it. You’ll find it under Mussolini or Il Duce). 

Seriously, though, The Trumpster has added fuel to a long simmering debate: Does the end justify the means? 

Are his bluster, his arrogance, his indignities, his lying, his disdain for anyone not a Trump, just for show, to be ignored as long as he secures his objectives? Or, do all his character flaws impoverish the office of the president and the heritage of the United States as the beacon of the civilized world?

For Trump, for all of us, the bottom line, the “end,” is his presidency. When will it end? In January 2021? In January 2025? Or sometime before?  

America used to be known as a country where protagonists debated ideas. Trump has reduced politics to a contest of name calling powered by personal animosity and vengeance. 

Too many respected observers of our political landscape, including former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, have issued warnings about the Trump effect and the world’s and our possible slide into fascism for their misgivings to be ignored (your choice of sources: an Op-Ed piece by Albright in The New York Times: https://nyti.ms/2EpFn8F or or an interview with Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air https://www.npr.org/2018/04/03/599120190/madeleine-albright-warns-dont-let-fascism-go-unnoticed-until-its-too-late).

To keep our heads above a fascist tide requires perspective plus a knowledge of history, science and basic truths. In the extraordinary teenage response to the Parkland, FL, high school shooting, what should we make of the use of the #NeverAgain hashtag? As repulsive as the killing of 17 students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was, does it compare to the six million Jewish deaths in the Holocaust often commemorated by the phrase Never Again? (http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Never-Again-From-a-Holocaust-phrase-to-a-universal-phrase-544666)

Let’s hope the new Never Again movement has more success than the last. Since first promulgated, the world has witnessed genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Syria, Chile, Argentina, Myanmar. Given the frequency of school shootings, I am not confident of more success. 

Perhaps the students, even the Jewish students among them, did not know of the Never Again association with the Holocaust. Chalk it up, if so, to the sad condition of American education. We’re seeing that sorry state play out in the teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky. It is difficult to attract quality teachers for the poverty wages states pay.

When I started as a reporter in Connecticut back in 1972, my immediate supervisor resented teacher pay scales. He reasoned, as too many do even today, that teachers led cushy lives, that they had summers and holidays off, that their work day ended in the early afternoon, not realizing they spend evenings grading papers and preparing lesson plans. And that they often spend their own money to supplement the meager supplies they need to properly instruct their students.

Back then, teachers, like nurses, social workers, police and firemen, were thought to not need higher pay, that they received part of their remuneration in the positive feelings generated by their good works. Ha! Try paying your mortgage or your grocery bill with positive feelings!

Among the signs held up by a student at one of the Oklahoma teacher protests was one stating, “My textbooks are older than me.” Proper grammar would have taught him he should have written “than I,” but the sentiment was appropriate.

Our country’s history is full of less than noble chapters. Slavery. Near annihilation of Native Americans. Robber Barons. Jim Crow Laws. Segregation. Discriminatory laws against Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese immigration. Yes, we are a great country, but we must also keep in mind that dangerous precedents inhabited our past.

That’s why it is so important for our leaders to embrace the symbols of our diversity and greatness. Consider just two events of the past week. For the second straight year Trump chose not to attend a Passover seder at the White House. 

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump did not visit the monument to the slain civil rights leader a short distance from the White House. He merely tweeted a canned video praising King, but his unrehearsed comments of the last two years have exposed him as a bigot, a racist, a xenophobe and a sympathetic friend of budding, if not already, dictators around the world. 

“Instead of mobilizing international coalitions to take on world problems, he (Trump) touts the doctrine of ‘every nation for itself’ and has led America into isolated positions on trade, climate change and Middle East peace,” wrote Albright. “Instead of engaging in creative diplomacy, he has insulted United States neighbors and allies, walked away from key international agreements, mocked multilateral organizations and stripped the State Department of its resources and role. Instead of standing up for the values of a free society, Mr. Trump, with his oft-vented scorn for democracy’s building blocks, has strengthened the hands of dictators. No longer need they fear United States criticism regarding human rights or civil liberties. On the contrary, they can and do point to Mr. Trump’s own words to justify their repressive actions.”

Trump has used his bully pulpit, both in person and via Twitter, to harangue adversaries. His latest target is Amazon and its alleged sweetheart shipping deal with the U.S. Postal Service. Trump further claims Amazon is the reason many Main Streets across America have vacant storefronts (https://nyti.ms/2Gxtkfq).

Imagine that! Sen. Bernie Sanders agrees with Trump that Amazon is getting too big.

Amazon revenues last year totaled $178 billion. But what about Walmart? Its revenues reached $500 billion. Arguably, Walmart has done more to close down rival merchants than Amazon. To my knowledge Trump is not calling for a breakup of Walmart. Sanders, meanwhile, does criticize the Arkansas-based retailer for paying low wages to most of its associates.

Interestingly, while Trump bemoans the growing strength of Amazon he applauds the consolidation of local news outlets under the banner of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a steadfast supporter of his views. If Sinclair receives approval to purchase Tribune Media it will have entry into seven out of 10 U.S. households. 

Trump also says Amazon should be required to collect state sales taxes to even the playing field with brick and mortar stores. He’s right, but Trump should be the last person to criticize anyone for not exceeding the requirements of the law. For its direct sales Amazon need only collect sales taxes in states where it has nexus. It is not required to collect sales taxes from sales made by its third party vendors. 

As are too many of our fellow citizens, Trump is under the impression that America owes its greatness to settlement by Western Europeans. He fails to recognize the contributions of Hispanics and Africans to our culture and economic growth. He scapegoats them in appeals to white nationalists and those who live in fear of imminent poverty or financial dislocation because America has shifted first from an agricultural economy to one dominated by manufacturing and now to a service-oriented platform.

Trump promises a return to greatness without ever spelling out the time period he wants to return to. His roadmap to wherever and whenever presumes America needs no partners other than on Trump’s terms. 

Will we be willing fellow travelers? Trump wants to get reelected. So do congressional Republican majorities who have mostly sublimated their constitutional obligations in favor of coattail election politics. 

It’s the people, however, who will determine—even in heavily gerrymandered districts—if democratic values will outweigh a strong man’s bombastic rule and attack on  cherished norms of society and politics. 

From Proudest Moment to Saddest, the Saga of Toys "R" Us Founder Charles Lazarus

With the liquidation bankruptcy filing of Toys “R” Us, the era of the category killer store may be said to be over. Toys “R” Us was the original category killer chain that overwhelmed small specialty and large general merchandise stores by offering a supermarket-style presentation of wide and deep assortments of sharply priced category specific merchandise. 

To be sure, a few category killers remain—Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, and even the struggling Barnes & Noble, to name several. But the graveyard list of category killers is much larger. An incomplete list would include Child World, Lionel Leisure, KB Toys, Circuit City, Crazy Eddie, Sports Authority, Oshman’s Sporting Goods, Linens ’n Things.

When Toys “R” Us began in 1948, if you wanted toys, or an appliance or housewares item—virtually anything—you would go downtown to a department store. There were no suburban department stores back then. There were no suburban shopping centers. 

Charles Lazarus used $4,000 to transform his father’s Washington, DC, bicycle shop into a juvenile furniture store. After customers kept asking for toys, Lazarus quickly evolved his merchandise mix to focus on toys. 

He believed staunchly in regimental uniformity. All business decisions–which products to carry, merchandising and store layout–emanated from headquarters. “I should be able to close my eyes and walk 130 feet and put my hand down and touch the very same stack of items in each store. If not, there’s something wrong,” he used to say. 

Lazarus was an early believer in the power of point of sale data. He partnered with suppliers, accepting early inventory deliveries and sharing sales data in return for discounts and assurances that Toys “R” Us would be kept in stock on the most wanted toys. The chain’s wide and deep inventory position became a strategic advantage when desperate parents and grandparents scavenged for the most wanted present during the holiday season. In stock leadership, not price, cemented the company’s position as the go-to retailer for toys. 

This advantage started to dissipate in the late 1980s as Walmart and Target refined their POS data systems. They concentrated on the hottest toys, selling them at discounted prices. They had more stores than Toys “R” Us. Shoppers visited them more often. They siphoned off sales in buckets, not drips and drabs. 

If you needed a specific toy, the place to go no longer was Toys “R” Us. In the age of the Internet, you searched on line, Amazon most likely.

With the advent of electronic games, computers and hand-held devices, traditional toys began losing their cache among children. Toys “R” Us added video games to its assortment, but one didn’t need to visit a store to upload apps to a hand-held device.

The real dagger to the heart of Toys “R” Us and other retailers, however, has been the greedy tentacles of private equity fund managers. They swooped in to ostensibly rescue retailers, offering cash secured against a retailer’s real estate. Some merchants had lagged because they could not compete against more streamlined, better financed competitors. Some were unable to cope with changing market conditions. Some just had inadequate management. It mattered not to the equity funds. They reaped their profits upfront from the leveraged buyout transaction, from interest payments on the debt it provided and, hopefully, from taking a retailer public if its profitability improved. 

Ever since Charles Lazarus retired from his creation in 1994, Toys “R” Us has lacked an energetic, bold merchant at the helm. Profits lagged. The equity funds offered money. But at a highly leveraged  price. Executives with no proprietary interest in a company, other than to maximize their personal returns, usually succumb to the siren song of a deep-pocketed equity fund. Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, along with Vornado Realty Trust, loaded Toys “R” Us with $5 billion in debt in a 2005 leveraged buyout. 

The downward sales spiral kept Toys “R” Us from paying off the debt and, ominously, from upgrading its stores and systems. All that’s left now is to sell off its real estate. 

Charles Lazarus is now 94. The last time I saw him was about 15 years ago as I was leaving work. He was window shopping a store located on the ground floor level of the Park Avenue office building housing Chain Store Age. We exchanged pleasantries but even then, a decade removed from active Toys “R” Us management, he resisted talking about the company he founded. 

He always was a reluctant interview (see http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2017/09/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-brings-back.html). I cannot imagine what must now be gripping his emotions. 

His proudest moment, he used to say, was paying off the creditor debt Toys “R” Us assumed when its then-parent company, Interstate Stores, dragged it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 1974. Other Chapter 11 filings have occurred, none under his watch. 

On Thursday, management filed for Chapter 7 liquidation. The same market forces that will silence Lazarus’ once ubiquitous airwaves jingle—“I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys “R” Us kid …,”—are sure to wreak havoc among remaining category killer stores. For some, if not all, it is just a matter of time before they share a similar fate.  

Retailing in the Age of Amazon Will Not be Devoid of Human Contact

By now you probably heard or read about Amazon’s pending purchase of Whole Foods Markets, what business analysts are projecting as the tipping point in a retail revolution that may well transform consumer transactions into experiences almost devoid of human interaction. With your smart phone you will be able to circumvent dealing with store personnel, they say, resulting in massive layoffs of workers at the lowest rung of the labor force, many who are unskilled, or elderly, or handicapped, or immigrants with tenuous English language skills, or combinations of the above (https://nyti.ms/2sAPV2D).

Analysts point to the the example of Amazon Go, an experimental store for its Seattle employees. Customers scan their phones upon entering, sensors remotely monitor what they put into their shopping baskets, and exit without the need to stop at a checkout stand and interact with a cashier for their purchases to be charged to their accounts.  

It reminds me of a technology I witnessed back in 1990 at my first EuroShop exhibition of store equipment and technology in Dusseldorf, Germany. A shopping cart haphazardly loaded with products was wheeled through a box the size of a compact refrigerator. Presto, all the items were scanned and ready to be taken home by the customer. So here we are more than a quarter of a century later, nowhere near the promise of yesterday, much like the flying cars we expected to be riding had we believed the future as portrayed in color newspaper inserts of the 1950s and 1960s. Heck, we haven’t even been able to create the flying hover board Marty McFly rode in 1989’s Back to the Future Part II set in 2015. Our earthbound hover boards are fire hazards.

But I digress. The point is, despite Moore’s Law and its corollaries to the rapid adoption of technologies, we are decades away from widespread implementation of Amazon’s futurescan. For several reasons.

Not everyone who enters a store buys something. Not everyone wants their whereabouts and their identities known and cached in some unknown database à la Minority Report. Civil libertarians would have a field day if such technology becomes ubiquitous, implemented without the authorized consent of the public.

Perhaps most socially and culturally relevant, eliminating the human factor in retailing would exacerbate the bifurcation of society already underway. While smart phones are ubiquitous in most neighborhoods, checking accounts and credit/debit cards are not. 

Three times a week I drive into Manhattan along Fifth Avenue, from 142nd Street in Harlem to 98th Street, one of the tonier sections of New York. From 110 Street, where Central Park begins, to 98th Street, Fresh Direct trucks double park as drivers deliver groceries to the wealthy. Above Central Park, over nearly three years I have yet to see a Fresh Direct truck servicing the population.

When visiting a supermarket, I opt for self-scanning in Stop & Shop. Except, not all Stop & Shops in my sphere of buying offer self-scanning. Stores in less desirable neighborhoods do not. Hmmm. I don’t really need to wonder why.

At upscale stores, such as Trader Joe’s, where friendly, knowledgeable service, along with exclusive products, are differentiators, I cannot foresee management abandoning their unique service proposition. 

Stacy Torres, an assistant professor of sociology at the University at Albany, provides real-life examples of why robots replacing humans has its drawbacks as long as we remain social animals: https://nyti.ms/2tVmHbT

The most dynamic growth retailers are deep discounters in food and general merchandise. While Trader Joe’s concentrates on the upscale market, its sister company, Aldi, aims low. It is a German-based no-frills, generic low-priced grocer sweeping across our country. So is Lidl, another German discount grocer with aggressive U.S. expansion plans.

Dollar stores, among them Dollar General and Dollar Tree, though the former is not a true dollar store purveyor as its price points are not restricted to 100 pennies, are the growth vehicles of challenged America. They serve a class of customer that will always be handled by store personnel.

Just imagine going into a Home Depot or Lowe’s. Not that it’s easy to find someone to help you right now, but it is doubtful they will do away with sales floor assistance. Cashiers? Sure, they’ve already eliminated many. But don’t expect to be walking into cavernous buildings barren of staff. The same can be said for electronics stores.

For sure, apparel and department stores are prime candidates for downsized labor costs as long as technology inhibits five-finger discounting from destroying a retailer’s bottom line. Consumer affinity for off-price apparel stores amply demonstrates that help is not necessary on the selling floor. Even Macy’s is now finally embarking on a Backstage off-price concept in an attempt to prolong its corporate lifespan, having let Nordstrom Rack and Saks’ Off Fifth enter the battle with Marshalls, T.J. Maxx and Ross Stores decades ago. 

It has been noted that even as store-based personnel are vanishing the number of warehouse staff is multiplying. Amazon, if not already there, is the number one apparel retailer, with all sales coming from its warehouses or those of its vendors. The reduction of apparel outlets will continue. 

Some retail innovations take years, even decades, to catch on. Thirty-six years ago a retail industry guru named Alton F. Doody decided he had preached enough. During his illustrious career he had counseled such groundbreaking retailers as Walmart and Target, but now he wanted to test an idea for a store of the future: Investment Clothiers. It was a concept where men and women could try on samples of suits, jackets and pants, then leave empty-handed with the knowledge that their selection would be pulled from a warehouse and ready for pickup or delivery the next day. 

Doody chose Cleveland, where I interviewed him, as one of his test markets. Cleveland, after all, was a very corporate city back then. Lots of men and women needed affordable business wear. Alas, the experiment failed.

Doody was decades ahead of his time judging by the positive results enjoyed by Bonobos, a menswear retailer just purchased by Walmart. Begun as an Internet retailer, Bonobos has opened dozens of stores where goods are showcased, customers are measured and fitted, but product is shipped at a later date.

If you’re old enough you might remember a hot concept of the late 1970s and early 1980s—the catalog showroom. Sales from companies like Service Merchandise, Best Products and Luria’s ranked among the top 100 retailers. They displayed hard goods in showrooms, fulfilling customer desires on the spot from extensive behind-the-wall warehouses. 

Okay, sometimes, often actually during high traffic periods, the wait for your purchase to be pulled off the back room shelves was exasperatingly long. And small showrooms meant fewer model options could be offered compared to those available at a traditional discount store. So it was not surprising the catalog showroom concept disappeared when Walmarts and Targets, not to mention Kmarts, appeared at virtually every crossroad. 

What all this means is retailing is among the most evolutionary of enterprises. As The New York Times related in two articles on April 15 (https://nyti.ms/2oJWGwQ and https://nyti.ms/2odz8xo), retailing is evolving faster than perhaps in any previous time. It is too early to seriously consider mass retailing on a robotic scale, but there surely will come a time when a segment, too soon to say how small or large, will accept automated, non human service. I just don’t see its widespread implementation during my transactional lifetime.