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.

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).

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!

The Passing of a Corporate Gadfly

Among the tasks I assigned my staff and myself as editor and publisher of Chain Store Age was attending annual shareholders meetings of public retail companies. We would travel all over the country. To Minneapolis for Target, or as it was formerly known, Dayton Hudson. To Cincinnati for Federated Department Stores. To Bentonville, Ark., for Walmart. To Toronto for Campeau Corp., the real estate company that bought Federated and Allied Stores in an ill-fated attempt to marry shopping center ownership with department store companies. To Troy, Mich., for Kmart. Some retailers, like Woolworth and Sears, held meetings in different cities each year. So did J.C. Penney. 

During one of Penney’s meetings in New York in the late 1980s, attended by more than 500 shareholders, the highlight, or lowlight, depending on your point of view, was the shareholder question and answer period. 

(Now, if you never experienced an annual stockholders meeting, let me advise you they are mostly dry affairs. Corporate recitations of sales and earnings with a few pronouncements of new strategic initiatives. Sounds boring, and they are. My staff attended them because they often were the only time we had access to top executives as they usually held press conferences before or after the meeting). 

Most of the shareholders in the audience were current or retired company employees concerned their retirement pensions and benefits were not being jeopardized by mismanagement or profligate management.  

And then there were the corporate gadflies who challenged companies to be more transparent and democratic. Gadflies held stock in dozens if not hundreds of companies. They would criss-cross the country to pester executives with arcane, sometimes inane, inquiries. 

The most prominent of these stockholder gadflies were the Gilbert brothers and Evelyn Y. Davis. They did not like each other. At times they quarreled openly during meetings, the chairmen being unable to referee their repartee. 

I bring all this to your attention because Evelyn Y. Davis died Sunday. She was 89 (https://nyti.ms/2yYfr4h). She was unmistakeable. The New York Times obituary commented on her notable apparel. But it was her sharp Dutch-accented voice that impressed her presence on me, so much so that some 20 years later, while listening to but not watching a White House press conference, I was instantly drawn to the television when I heard her distinctive voice. 

Evelyn always got the microphone at corporate meetings. At the aforementioned Penney meeting she asked then chairman and CEO William Howell if the company was a fashion retailer. For sure, Howell replied. To which Evelyn wanted to know, why then did the wife of the vice president of merchandising wear a naugahyde dress to a recent fashion event? After the audience stopped laughing, Howell said he could offer no explanation. 

I haven’t been to an annual shareholders meeting in more than a dozen years. I am not aware if gadflies still exist to torment current chairmen. The Gilbert brothers are long gone as now so too is Evelyn Y. Davis. I’m glad I had the opportunity to witness them at the peak of their dedication to enlightened corporate governance. 

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.

Border Walls, Boundary Waters, Dumb and Dumber

Uh oh! Donald Trump may have to start talking about building another wall. This wall would be a lot longer than the wall between the United States and Mexico. This one would span the longest non-militarized border between any two countries—the United States and Canada. 

Canada and the 48 continental states share a 3,987 miles border. The border between Canada and Alaska adds another 1,538 miles. By comparison, the U.S.-Mexican border is 1,989 miles.

Why the sudden need to shore up defenses against a country that has been, for all intents and purposes, our soft sister for more than two centuries, even ceding us domination of its national sport, hockey? Islamophobia, of course. Specifically, the acceptance of Syrian refugees. http://nyti.ms/294mHw6

And we all know what comes next, warn the fear mongers, chief among them, The Donald. Terrorists will be embedded among the refugees and sooner, or maybe later, under cover of Canadian residency papers they will slip quietly, make that simply walk, through border passport control and start killing Americans. 

Trump can point to a 2015 U.S. Senate report, “The State of America’s Border Security,” for validation of a plan to wall off the country, top and bottom.

“Security observers have argued that Canada represents a substantial vulnerability, because it provides immigrant visas to individuals who pose a significant threat,” said the report. http://washex.am/1Nzujr8

He can also remind us of Ahmed Ressam who planned to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999. Ressam was an Algerian al-Qaeda member who had lived in Montreal. He was caught with a bomb in his car by Washington State border security. 

So get ready America for cement mixers and chain link fence planters to be working overtime should Trump get elected president. 

Boundary Waters: One of the joys of writing this blog is the opportunity it affords me to reminisce and reflect on current events associated with my past. Today, July 4, for example, is the 40th anniversary of the successful Israeli raid on Entebbe that freed 100 Jewish hostages from Palestinian and German hijackers and the clutches of Idi Amin, the madman leader of Uganda. 

By coincidence, Gilda and I were at Ben Gurion Airport that day, awaiting a flight to Rome as the triumphant Israelis and the freed captors returned to Israel to a celebration reserved for feats of heroic grandeur such as Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic, V-J Day at Times Square and the inauguration of our first Afro-American president.

Two days ago I was catapulted back 35 years by an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times by former Vice President Walter F. Mondale and Theodore Roosevelt IV, the great grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. “Protect Minnesota’s Boundary Waters,” they wrote. They opined against a mining proposal that could imperil the region (http://nyti.ms/299T7pE).

I suspect most people seeing the term Boundary Waters had faint ideas about its meaning and the attachment Minnesotans have to it. I, too, would have been mostly ignorant to its meaning had it not been for an October 1981 cover story Chain Store Age did on Dayton’s Department Stores of Minneapolis and its new merchandising concept, Boundary Waters. 

“The Boundary Waters is an area of northern Minnesota along the Canadian border that is one of the few true wilderness regions remaining in the country,” Stephen E. Watson, then Dayton’s sr. vp and general merchandise manager for men’s and women’s apparel, explained (Watson would go on to become president of Dayton Hudson Corp., now known as Target Corp., before assuming executive roles at other retail companies). “The people in the community here see themselves as very outdoors-oriented, active and adventuresome. To them, Boundary Waters have real, as well as symbolic meaning.”

Dayton’s no longer exists, but a scion of the founding family, Mark Dayton, is now governor of Minnesota. He has come out against the mining project. 

Dumb and Dumber: For all his political skills, just how dumb is former President Bill Clinton? And is Attorney General Loretta Lynch dumber for agreeing to meet with him at the Phoenix airport as the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server while secretary of state is still ongoing?

Before he does something dumb again (he always seems to do something that ruffles his wife’s campaigns, as he did in South Carolina eight years ago), he should be confined to grandfather duty full time with only limited public exposure, such as at the Democratic convention. Hillary has more than enough surrogates to campaign for her. She doesn’t need her husband to give Trump any opportunity to ridicule him and her.

Your political witticism of the day, courtesy of whowhatwhy.org:

“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” —Joseph Stalin

Finding the Truth Behind the Numbers

The news Friday that Dow Chemical and DuPont are seeking approval to merge brought back memories of my first meeting with Leo J. Shapiro, whose expertise in social science research was instrumental in enhancing my journalism career and in making Chain Store Age unique, informative, must reading for retailers in the last two decades of the 20th century and the first 10 years of the 21st. Leo passed away in Tucson last month. He was 94.

The first time I met Leo, in 1979, in his firm’s then offices on the 37th floor of Lake Point Tower on the edge of Lake Michigan in Chicago, he observed that companies often choose a branding message in conflict with their everyday functions. 

Dow Chemical’s slogan back then was “Common Sense - Uncommon Chemistry.” DuPont’s was “Better Things for Better Living … Through Chemistry.” Yet both companies produced napalm and Agent Orange, the notorious herbicide used by the American military to defoliate much of Vietnam and consequently, tragically, causing “serious health issues—including tumors, birth defects, rashes, psychological symptoms and cancer—among returning U.S. servicemen and their families as well as among the Vietnamese population.”

In 1979 I had recently taken over as editor of Chain Store Age, inheriting a tradition of publishing a full-issue study in December on what we called a Great Retail Institution. The retailer we profiled always cooperated. For 1979 it was the F.W. Woolworth Corporation. 

Cooperation would not be the case for our 1980 profile—Kmart, at the time the second largest general merchandise retailer in the world with $14.8 billion in sales, behind Sears’ $16.9 billion (by comparison, Wal-Mart was a minuscule though growing chain with sales of only $1.6 billion. For 2014, Wal-Mart’s sales exceeded $473 billion; for the now combined Sears/Kmart, sales reached just $31.2 billion, of which $12.1 billion came from Kmart). 

Without Kmart’s cooperation we had to devise an alternative plan to secure information about the strengths and weaknesses of the chain. Publication director Paul Reuter spotted Leo’s name in an article in Advertising Age. It said his research firm, Leo J. Shapiro & Associates, had been following Kmart for many years. 

During that first meeting Leo explained that retailers, as do many companies, persist in doing things the same old way instead of moving on to the next wave of innovation. Sears, he opined, should have started a discount chain à la Kmart. Kmart, in turn, should have evolved into the more upscale Target or the more rural Wal-Mart. 

With Leo’s help Chain Store Age produced a publishing home run—more advertising than ever before and an editorial product recognized for its clarity and insight not only within the retail industry but also by our publishing brethren. The Kmart full-issue study was one of five finalists for a National Magazine Award, a rare achievement for a trade publication. 

Success in 1980 meant 1981’s December issue would be more challenging. Rather than profile a retailer we opted to work with Leo to produce the retail industry’s “1st Consumer Buying Intentions Study: Who, What, Where & Why They’ll Buy.” The study did not, as we expected, sell as well as the Kmart issue. 

But I almost fell off my chair when Stewart Orton, then chairman and CEO of Foley’s Department Store in Houston, in his speech accepting the Gold Medal Award of the National Retail Federation at its January 1982 annual luncheon, exhorted the thousands in attendance to read Chain Store Age’s December buying intentions study issue. 

Over the 30 years I worked with Leo and his partner, George Rosenbaum, Chain Store Age expanded the role of trade publishing. We innovated and published monthly and annual buying intentions studies as well as surveys on technology, credit trends, payment systems, loss prevention, store atmospherics, logistics and other topics never before distributed by a publication for the retail industry. Moreover, by including topical questions in their omnibus monthly national polls, Leo and George provided Chain Store Age with up to the moment insights on consumers.

“Garbage in, garbage out” is a widely held adage for anyone doing research. I always thought I knew what I wanted to study, but it was only after talking with Leo or George that I discovered what was truly worth researching. 

Tales Worth Retelling

In an interview with People magazine, the nation’s First Couple related their personal experiences with racism. 

“There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys,” President Barack Obama told People. The magazine reported he said “it had happened to him.”

A car key handoff of a different kind happened to one of my magazine’s salesmen, Mike B., in Detroit more than 30 years ago. Arriving late for an appointment in downtown Detroit, Mike hastily handed his rental car keys to a garage attendant. Only the person wasn’t a garage attendant, a fact Mike discovered when he returned to the garage. 

It took the police less than an hour to locate the now stripped-to-the-bones stolen rental car. Aside from his dignity, that’s not all Mike lost that day. Seems Mike had a quirky habit of stashing his wallet under his car seat, no doubt a bonanza the car thief and his cohorts had not anticipated finding. 

The People article also included Michelle Obama’s story of shopping in Target while first lady. “The only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her.”

Mrs. Obama sees that as an example of racism, an illustration of a (presumably white) woman assuming a black woman is an employee and asking her for help. Perhaps. But I’m more inclined to believe the customer looked to her as a taller,  bigger woman who could more easily reach the product she wanted to buy. While shopping in a supermarket or discount store I am often asked by women to reach merchandise on higher shelves. And since I’m generally dressed neatly, they many times presume I’m a store manager. I’m also wondering if Michelle was wearing a red polo short that day, the standard apparel worn by Target associates. 

On the other hand, I agree with Mrs. Obama’s other examples of racism encountered by her husband. “He was wearing a tuxedo at a black-tie dinner, and somebody asked him to get coffee,” she recounted, while noting that before becoming president “Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs.” 

The status of race relations in America is at its lowest level in 17 years, according to a study released last week by CBS News and The New York Times. In 2009, 66% of those polled thought race relations were “good.” This year that percentage has dropped to 45%, a 31.8% decline. As could be expected in light of the Eric Garner and Michael Brown killings, as well as other incidents around the country where whites—police officers and civilians—shot unarmed Afro-Americans, the black community is more inclined to believe its members have been targeted for less than equal treatment.

Hard to blame them, but I wonder if the Barack Obama factor isn’t at play here. Instead of signaling a new era of racial acceptance, his election and re-election as president have fostered latent bias and overt racism. There just are too many people—white people—who cannot accept that the leader of the Free World is black. 

They see members of Congress publicly dis the president. They watch Fox News commentators throughout the day disrespect him. Both groups are not attacking his policies, for in truth he has done what his Republican predecessors have (including a surprise opening of a new era of relations with a devoutly Communist country). They are attacking his person. It’s thus a small leap of conscience for the individual bigot to gratify and carry out his or her own prejudices, even if it results in bodily harm to an Afro-American. 

Mind you, I am not exonerating blacks from contributing to the lower level of good race relations. I’d like to see more bootstrapping in their community. I want them to project more family values, better maintain neighborhoods, embrace education not as a stepping stone to a professional athletic career but for its ability to contribute to a more meaningful and rewarding life. They have allowed a culture of drugs and violence to dominate too many of their surroundings. 

Yes, Afro-Americans have historical, and let’s not forget physical, hurdles not experienced by other minorities. But the success of Obama and corporate leaders such as Richard Parsons and Kenneth Chenault should provide inspiration beyond recording studios, ball fields and arenas. 

Lox vs. Locks and Tuesday Movies Go Dark

Your faithful correspondent and his wife returned home shortly after 3 am today from a week-long trip to California, first to visit my sister Lee and her husband David in Los Angeles and then to attend a wedding in Laguna Beach where the weather couldn’t have been better—the whole weekend a balmy 71 degrees with a slight ocean breeze. That compares quite favorably to the mid 80s and high humidity in White Plains today.

My only complaint about the trip was I never got an opportunity to watch any episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. Here’s an example of why I miss those two shows:

When you’re a Jewish comedian as Stewart is, you run the risk of telling an “inside” joke your gentile guest has no idea you’re making. During his interview with actress Ellen Page Monday night, Stewart couldn’t contain his positive feelings about Canada, especially Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page’s home town. He concluded his gushing by saying, “and by the way, the lox that they make ...” To which Page immediately responded, “I know, you can’t break the locks.”

I laughed at Stewart’s ethnic culinary joke and even harder at Page’s non sequitur response. To his credit, Stewart didn’t flinch. Though he tried to salvage the joke, the conversation quickly moved to another topic. No doubt, when he reviewed the tape of the show he mused and was bemused by the shmeared exchange.

It’s Tuesday Free Movie Day: Only until the end of May. My fellow senior citizens and I have been dealt a cruel blow. In the same week The NY Times came out with its summer movies preview section, we received notice that free Tuesdays and discounted-films-all-other-times at Clearview Cinemas we qualify for as part of our Cablevision Optimum Triple Play package will terminate by the end of the month. 

Cablevision has sold Clearview Cinemas. Until the company follows through on a promise of new movie deals, this will be a looong summer. Not just for me but for many seniors who took advantage of the free movies on Tuesdays. The promotion was not restricted to those in the sunset years, but we have been the major beneficiaries of the benefit. With everyone trying to stretch their bucks as far as they can, the free movie deal was a real bonanza. Consider this: Seniors normally pay $8 per ticket. You were entitled to two free tickets per week. If you went to the movies at Cleaview just one Tuesday a month, by yourself, you’d save $96. Go more often, or with a spouse, partner or friend, and the savings really added up. 

During the winter, the first screening started around 4 pm. But during the summer it was pushed up to around noon. Over the last few years I thought I’d take more advantage of the deal but something more important always came up. Now I’m feeling kinda disappointed I didn’t see more free films. 

News Updates: Gilda’s averaging a little more than 45 miles per gallon in her Ford C-Max. She’s even logged in a 50-plus mpg drive to work (the car informs you what your mpg was each time you turn off the motor). ... A quarter of the baseball season has passed and the NY Yankees are in first place. I readily admit it, I never expected this. Nor did I expect the Yanks to be among the American League team leaders in home runs, have the best earned run average and be ranked third in team defense. All this without a laundry list of high-priced veteran stars on the disabled list. Which should make Yankee fans wonder if our pursuit of top-dollar free agents might be a mistake going forward. Perhaps all we need are hungry-to-succeed players bolstered by a Robinson Cano who is having a monster of a year. ... Did you notice that American retailers did not join in the global effort to monitor and fund work and building conditions in Bangladesh. The plan was good enough for foreign-based retailers such as H&M, Inditex (Zara) and C&A to sign on, but U.S. companies like Wal-Mart and Gap resisted, believing their individual efforts would be better. Perhaps, as well, they feared being told what to do. It’s the same mentality that scuttled U.S. approval of a proposed United Nations treaty that would regulate international weapon sales despite the treaty’s specific language guaranteeing each country the right to maintain its own internal regulations, in our case the Second Amendment right to bear arms. ... JC Penney’s new/old boss Myron “Mike” Ullman has reinstated sales and pushed an aggressive advertising campaign acknowledging mistakes and asking disillusioned customers to come back. The ads have good production quality but the problem is they don’t reflect what’s going on inside the stores. Until Penney shifts its merchandise to match its customer profile, no amount of advertising will turn the battleship around. ... Here’s another example of Target getting a pass on a practice Wal-Mart would be crucified for: A new union election has been ordered for a Long Island store after it was ruled Target  acted improperly to stifle the vote, including threats to close the store if the union won certification. Wal-Mart’s constantly being harangued for its anti-union attitude. But few if any of the “sophisticates” who prefer “Tar-zhay” to Wal-Mart reconsider their patronage of the Minneapolis-based discounter.  

Bangladesh and Corporate Social Responsibility

In the three weeks since an eight-story garment factory building in Bangladesh collapsed and entombed more than 1,100 workers, there have been lots of media reports about the responsibility of American and European retailers and brand name companies to be more proactive in monitoring and demanding greater safety in the factories that inexpensively produce goods to be sold throughout the world at prices that would be far beyond the reach of the women and men who make them for an average monthly wage of just $37.  

The scramble is on. The scramble to avoid the appearance of insensitivity. Retailers and their brand name suppliers are scrambling to distance themselves from multiple tragedies in Bangladesh and Pakistan, even as worker-advocates press them to force their foreign manufacturers to be more conscious of safety and living wage measures (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/business/global/clothing-retailers-pressed-on-bangladesh-factory-safety.html?ref=business&_r=0). 

They don’t want their good names sullied by horrific misfortunes half a world away. Yet, like our politicians who often kick the can down the road rather than tackle controversial issues such as social security or tax reform, the retail community rarely takes decisive action. My 30-plus years covering the industry, reinforced by my reporter’s sensibilities, make me a cynic. Sadly, my feelings can be summed up by the last paragraph in The NY Times story linked above: 

“Kellie A. McElhaney, an expert on corporate social responsibility at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, predicted that these pressures would hardly sway the companies. ‘They are feeling a lot of pressure, but it’s not coming from consumers. It’s coming from N.G.O.’s,’ she said, referring to nongovernment organizations. ‘They’re not feeling it in the marketplace. I believe they’re going to do the bare minimum. The N.G.O.’s need to make more consumers aware of this.’”  

Here’s why I’m a cynic: Perhaps 10 to 15 years ago my magazine co-produced a conference called Making It Right. We worked with several corporate social responsibility NGOs to raise awareness about the sordid conditions many foreign workers were forced to toil under as they prepared apparel, sporting goods and other products Americans eagerly consumed because they were less expensive than they would be if U.S. workers produced them, or if higher wages were provided to the populations in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China or any of the other Third World countries exploited for their cheap labor. Meeting at the Tenement Museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to plan the event, our conference advisory board had representatives from Gap, J.C. Penney and other retailers. Held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, the conference attracted several hundred industry attendees. It was a thematic success, but little of any progress was made.

My takeaway from that conference was that price was the overwhelming driving force behind corporate decisions where sourcing would originate. For a few scant pennies per item, manufacturing contracts would shift from one country to another. Bangladesh became the second largest apparel producer in the world, behind China. If tragedies persist, and they surely will, the result most likely will not be safer standards or higher wages in that impoverished country. Rather, the people of Bangladesh, who rely on the garment industry for much of their economy, will be hurt by the desertion of apparel contracts as retailers and brand name companies migrate production to countries with low wages and labor conditions not (yet) under the media spotlight.

Though there have been some reports consumers are becoming more conscious of where and how their purchases are produced, I’m not optimistic there will be a tidal wave of change. I don’t profess to be any better than the next person. I’d rather spend less on everything I buy, assuming the quality is comparable. But I do believe retailers, especially large companies like H&M, Wal-Mart, Target, Nike, Gap, and their important suppliers, such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, can demand more accountability from their overseas factories, even to the point where they underwrite safety improvements. The few pennies more each of us in America and Europe would pay to prevent catastrophes would hardly impact our way of life. But it would go a long way into assuring a better life, maybe even continued life, for those faceless workers who make our lives easier and more fashionable.

   

Three Departures

The airwaves have been filled all day long with news, commentaries and tributes to the Great Lady, the Iron Lady of British politics, the longest serving British prime minister of the 20th century, the indefatigable Margaret Thatcher who taught Ronald Reagan a thing or two about what it means to be conservative, who is credited with, at least temporarily, stopping the slide of the British Empire, or at least shoring up the pride behind the Union Jack. Thatcher died Monday. She was 87.

No less an iconic cultural figure passed away Monday, as well. Annette Funicello, one of the original Mousketeers of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club died. She was 70. For many of my age cohort, she was the embodiment (emphasis on body) of growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, first from her exposure on the Mickey Mouse Club and then from her recurring beach party films with Frankie Avalon. 

When the Mickey Mouse Club made its debut in October 1955, Funicello was but 13 years old. I always thought my sister Lee, four years younger than her, looked a lot like Funicello, though as Annette grew older and filled out her Mousketeer shirt, Lee’s resemblance appeared less prominent. 

Though it lasted for only three original seasons, when I was six through nine, I really loved the Mickey Mouse Club, especially the Spin and Marty dude ranch serial. Tim Considine played Spin, and later the eldest son of Fred MacMurray on My Three Sons. 

A departure of a different kind took place Monday at J.C. Penney. Ron Johnson, the CEO recruited from Apple, has been sacked, a little more than a year since taking the helm at Plano, Tex.-based Penney. He was replaced by the man he succeeded, Myron “Mike” Ullman, brought back from retirement (http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/johnson-out-ceo-jc-penney-ullman-back). 

Johnson’s fall from grace was swift but not unexpected. After scoring a success with the sleek Apple stores he helped create, it was not a surprise that transforming a dowdy department store with 100 years of tradition and arteriosclerosis would be difficult. 

Where will Johnson go from here? My guess is he will land at another specialty store, perhaps Best Buy which has been troubled of late and has the added benefit of being based near Minneapolis where Johnson worked as a key executive of Target.  

Sales Promotions and Top Down Management

Did you hear about the Baltimore furniture store that gave away $600,000 in merchandise as part of a Super Bowl promotion that promised free goods if a Baltimore Raven returned a kickoff for a touchdown during the penultimate game? 

Anyone who bought furniture between January 31 and 3 pm game day last Sunday from any Gardiners Furniture store would have their money refunded. Gardiners had been running a Super Bowl kick return promotion for three years before Jacoby Jones ran 108 yards to pay dirt at the start of the second half of the game the Ravens won. Co-owner Gary Mullaney sponsored the promotion as part of a traffic-building scheme. Fortunately, for Gardiners, he also opted to insure his idea, just in case. The insurance policy cost $12,000 (http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bs-ae-gardiners-follow-20130204,0,6257047.story). 

As I write this, it’s snowing outside, the early stage of a blizzard that will blanket the New York metro area as it makes its way up into New England. I’m reminded of a sales promotion tied to snowfall run by Potamkin Auto Centers Limited of Manhattan back in January 1996. Potamkin promised free leases to anyone who signed for a car between December 22 and January 2 if it snowed more than four inches in Central Park on January 8 between 10 am and 10 pm.

Sunday, January 7, it started snowing, and snowing and snowing. The biggest snowfall in 48 years. All told, 20.6 inches fell from Sunday through Monday. But Potamkin escaped unscathed, except for its insurance policy of $32,000, because the devil was in the details. During the 12 promotion hours, only 3.3 inches of snow fell (http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/19960114/ISSUE01/100011057). 

I was reminded of this brush with snow history because I recall being told the idea for the car lease promotion might have come from an ex-publisher colleague who was working for Potamkin at the time. I can’t verify if Arthur was indeed the originator of the plan, but it worked. Potamkin leased 104 cars during the contest period, worth nearly $1 million in rental fees.

Arthur died recently. I think he’d appreciate being remembered for his salesmanship, even if he wasn’t directly involved.

Top Down Management: With much fanfare one year ago J.C. Penney announced a new policy of everyday low prices. No more sales every week. Just everyday low prices. With little more than a whimper two weeks ago the company reversed course and conceded customers couldn't be enticed to shop its stores without the attraction of sales. So they're back.

This reversal of fortune is a slap in the face of CEO Ron Johnson, who came to Penney from a successful stint as head of Apple’s stores. Decisions by CEOs often run counter to expectations, but are made for personal as well as business reasons.

Sticking with Penney, some 25 years ago the company abandoned its New York headquarters in favor of Texas, because, it was rumored in the trade, its then chairman William R. Howell was interested in running for the U.S. Senate from his native state, Oklahoma. Never happened, to my knowledge, but he did commute by helicopter to the new corporate headquarters in Plano, outside Dallas. 

Target changed its check acceptance policy when its leader couldn’t pay for purchases to furnish a condominium he and his wife bought as a warm weather vacation retreat from Minneapolis’ brutal winters. When Bruce Allbright rolled his shopping cart full of household goods up to the checkout counter, the cashier told him corporate policy stated the maximum personal check she could accept was for $100. Though he complained it was an unrealistically low amount, she responded that even if he were the chairman of Target she could not violate company rules. She stood her ground even when he revealed himself as chairman of the chain. The next day Allbright amended company policy to accept checks up to $1,000. 

Most supermarket chains have one store that stands out from all others, in appearance and in the diversity and quality of its offerings. It usually is known as the chairman’s store, the one where he or his wife shops. So it was with the now defunct Colonial Stores of Atlanta.  

It happened some 30-plus years ago that in its effort to cut labor expenses Colonial’s management team decided meat no longer would be processed in-store. Whatever was shipped to the stores and arranged in the refrigerated bins was the only meat available. And so, the story goes, when the chairman’s wife went to her store to pick up some chop meat, and couldn’t find any, she was stymied in her efforts to get the staff in the meat department to grind up some chuck. Against new corporate rules. 

She bought some prime beef, brought it home and cranked it through her hand grinder for a meat loaf. Her husband praised her cooking that evening, but swallowed harder when she explained what she had gone through and what she paid for the prime meat instead of the chuck she originally sought. Recognizing the inconvenience and the extra expense his customer would face, the chairman rescinded the meat department rules.

End of the World Edition. Maybe.

It’s the end of the world, according to those who believe the Mayans were onto something a millennium ago. Their calendar is believed to end Friday, which might pose a problem for those planning to make Saturday the busiest shopping day of this year’s holiday season. With not a moment to spare, here are some tidbits to keep your mind off the inevitable:

Did You Know? 22% of Americans believe the world will end during their lifetime? That’s according to a Reuters/Ipsos Global survey earlier this year of 16,262 adults in 21 countries. The global average for world destruction in our lifetime was just 14%, which means Americans are a pretty pessimistic bunch. Europeans, on the other hand, see the world through rosier glasses. Only 6% in France, 7% in Belgium, 8% in Great Britain and 11% in Sweden believe the world will end in their lifetimes. Perhaps Republicans should reconsider their constant bashing of Europe. 

As for the immediate danger at hand, 12% of Americans agreed the Mayans had it right about the end of the world. One in five Chinese agreed, while 13% of residents of Turkey, Russia, Mexico South Korea and Japan thought so as well. 

Stop the Presses? Not to be too cynical, but did we really believe Wal-Mart, and for that matter other companies expanding abroad, did not at times resort to bribery to get their plans approved? I’m not condoning any alleged action, but I’m not going to be surprised if it is confirmed either by the company or independent panels. Heck, bribing local officials happens here in the United States, so why should we be blind-sided if allegations prove true in Mexico, as reported in The NY Times, or in India or other countries where American companies have financial interests? By all means, let’s report the improprieties, but let’s not be too sanctimonious about it.

There’s Nothing New Under the Sun: That was my reaction to an article in Wednesday’s Times about Internet retailers like Piperlime and Bonobos deciding to open physical stores, units that carry limited inventory for customers to feel and try on merchandise but not purchase and take home on the spot. Goods are ordered online at the store and delivered the next day, usually (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/business/shopping-sites-open-brick-and-mortar-stores.html?_r=0). 

Thirty years ago I reported on a concept developed by retail guru Alton Doody called Investment Clothiers based in Columbus, Ohio (fyi, Doody was one of the brains behind the look that differentiated Target from other discount stores). Here’s one of the key paragraphs from that story which parallels The Times article:

“What Doody has devised is a chain of stores that leapfrogged the catalog book stage. He has relied instead on a visual catalog—the store—wherein customers can get a tactile appreciation of the goods and be stimulated through point of sale material and knowledgeable sales personnel to trade up in price points and purchase additional merchandise.” 

I’d like to report Investment Clothiers was a success, but it wasn’t. Like so many underperforming retailers, it picked lousy store locations. If you haven’t heard it before, the three keys to successful retail and restaurant operations are: Location. Location. Location.

Fiscal Cliff: Definitely not a great location, being on a fiscal cliff. Perhaps, like me, you had a tinge of optimism earlier this week when House Speaker John Boehner seemed to finally agree to a tax hike on the wealthy, albeit just for those making more than $1 million a year. My optimism was enhanced by the following sentence in a Times article: “The two sides are now dickering over price, not philosophical differences, and the numbers are very close.”

As I considered further the state of negotiations to resolve the fiscal cliff crisis, I was reminded of a classic Winston Churchill story. I won’t vouch for its veracity, but as the anecdote goes, the old codger and former British prime minister was seated at a dinner party next to a socialite not to his liking. The conversation was said to go thusly:

“Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?" 

Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "

Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"

Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!" 

Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.” 

Having seemingly agreed to higher taxes for the rich, Boehner should stop haggling and start thinking about the greater good of the country. Accept, already, the president’s revised $400,000 threshold for a tax increase. 

Speaking of Sex: In my quest to bring you all the news that's fit to print, or at least all the news that's useful, here's a morsel from Down Under—for those of you who travel for work, know that in Australia, injury during sex while on a business trip qualifies you for worker’s compensation benefits.

The Federal Court ruled a government worker traveling on business was entitled to compensation for physical and psychological injuries after she was struck in the face by a falling glass light fitting in her motel room while having sex. According to the Associated Press,  “The government's views on the woman having sex in her motel room were irrelevant.” The court compared injury during sex to injury while playing cards in a motel room. The former has as much right to be covered as the latter.

Before you rush off to Sydney for your next business trip, be aware Comcare, the government’s insurer, is considering an appeal. 

I was particularly fascinated by this story because of my own unusual worker’s comp story, first reported to you last December. Here’s a quick recap (that’s a great pun which you’ll understand once you finish reading my story):

On a trip to Los Angeles to meet the president of Vons Supermarkets at a new Hispanic concept store, Tiengas, I was induced by him to try some rancho huevos, essentially scrambled eggs, despite my claims of high cholesterol. On my first bite I felt a crunch. I had cracked my tooth on the softest of foods. How embarrassing! How upsetting that I might incur a $550 dental bill for a crown, the going rate at the time.

Talking over my predicament several days later with the head of our company’s human resources department, we agreed I would submit a worker’s compensation claim. After all, the only reason I put the eggs into my mouth was because the Vons president insisted. It was clearly a work-related claim, we reasoned.

The compensation board agreed. I received full reimbursement for the crown.

The moral of both stories is, file a claim. You’ll never know what might result. Even if you don’t succeed, remember, it’s not the end of the world.

Do We Really Need to Know This?

How would you like to have been the PR person assigned to write the press release accompanying the following headline?

“More than 38 Million Online Americans Shopped While on the Toilet”

Do we really need to know this? I know shopping has become more than just part of the fabric of the American way of life. To many it has become the total blanket. Still, do we really need to know that even on the potty people are dialing up their smartphones so they won’t miss that bargain of a lifetime. It used to be sitting on the john was reserved as “quality” reading time. If you remember the movie The Big Chill, the Jeff Goldblum character, a writer for People, said he and his colleagues were instructed to keep stories short enough so they could be read in total during the time it takes to complete one average dump. 

Anyway, back to the, ahem, news ... A Harris Interactive survey paid for by CashStar, suggests “that more than 38 million online adult Americans admit to having shopped online while on the toilet.” Compare that to “almost 17 million shopping via a mobile device while standing in the retailer's physical store.”

Among the other enlightening though not projectable findings of this online survey of 2,104 adults aged 18 and older conducted Nov. 6-8:

*Potty shopping was more of a male than female activity;

*Shopping online trumps safety as more than four million said they shopped while driving;

*The business of business is business, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that more than nine million said they have secretly shopped while in a business meeting;

*Seven million-plus Americans shopped from their mobile device while at the grocery store.

Get to Work Thursday: I never liked Sunday Blue Laws, the civic ordinances that required retailers to be closed Sundays, or another day of the week if one’s religion celebrated the sabbath on a different schedule that Christian America. Blue Laws mostly vanished in the last 25 years except in some hamlets like Paramus, NJ; some companies, such as Chick-fil-A, remain closed on Sundays because of the religious belief of their founders, Truett Cathy in the case of Chick-fil-A. 

I like having access to stores every day. But I also believe store personnel are entitled to some family life. They should not be deprived of holidays with their families. Or friends. With the exception of drug stores and partial hours for supermarkets, stores should be closed on Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. I’m also okay with no retailing on Christmas and Easter. No one should go into cardiac arrest because they can’t get their Target or Victoria’s Secret fix. Yet these stores, and a whole lot more, have scheduled openings for Thanksgiving. It’s not enough they make workers get to the store before the sun rises for Black Friday sales, now they are thrusting a consumer frenzy mindset onto a day that had always been reserved for family. There’s enough tension already in these family gatherings without the extra hype shopping demands. 

My daughter’s brother-in-law Rob posted a neat idea—“Any stores that start Black Friday shopping on Thanksgiving this year will be getting zero business from us.” He included a list of stores opening on Thanksgiving: 

http://retailindustry.about.com/od/2012ThanksgivingDay11222012/a/2012-Thanksgiving-Day-Store-Hours-Opening-Times-November-22-Complete-Roundup-List_2.htm. It’s going to be pretty hard to stay away from many of these stores, but the sentiment is one worth considering.

Lots of people, nearly half the country, will struggle to shop in stores this weekend, but there’s growing evidence the activity does not rate high on people’s preferred activities. According to Western Union Holiday Gifting Index, 68% of those who shopped on Black Friday last year said they did not think the experience was worth the money they saved. 

I Love You, Craig: As long as we are on the subject of waste matter (see above), Gilda has embarked on a composting binge. All manner of uncooked vegetables, fruits, tea leaves, cooked egg shells and cardboard egg cartons are making their way into our compost pile. Normally, I fill up the pile with free compost from our city municipal dump. But I got there too late this year. Without compost, Gilda’s flower and vegetable garden would not be extraordinary, so we’re now a composting family. 

Composting, however, requires leaves. Lots of leaves. Shredded leaves. The electric blower/shredder I borrowed from my brother last year doesn’t really work (no wonder he let me have it). New electric leaf shredders cost about $200. I opted to try to find a used on on Craig’s List. Score! I found one today 60 miles away in New Jersey for just $25. 

While I’m at a meeting tonight, Gilda will be surprised when she comes home from work and sees the Craftsman Leafwacker Plus where my car usually rests in the garage (don't worry about her finding out before she gets home; she rarely reads my posts the day they go up). I even bagged six large loads of leaves from around the neighborhood. I know what you’re thinking—I’m such a thoughtful husband. There’s lots of truth to that. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m retired and able to spend time, thanks to Craig’s List, fulfilling her dreams. 

Chicagoland Express

Spent the last two days in Chicagoland at a retail industry conference in a hotel near O’Hare Airport. During my heyday travel years, I’d fly in and out of O’Hare six times or more a year. I enjoyed Chicago’s controlled bustle. It always seemed more manageable than New York, though the ride between the airport and downtown was never predictable. No matter what time of day you were just as likely to swiftly and bumpily speed down the John F. Kennedy Expressway as you were to crawl along because of congestion or road work. A cabbie once told me Chicago had two seasons—winter and construction.

I didn’t have to contend with the latter this trip. But I did get caught on my way home by the bane of most summer travelers—delays from late afternoon thunderstorms. Chicago was crystal clear, but somewhere down the line storms had disrupted service so that our outgoing plane to La Guardia had not even landed at O’Hare by our scheduled departure time. Instead of returning to New York around 9:30 pm, my best prediction was closer to midnight, if I was lucky. This part of business travel I surely have not missed since my retirement from magazine publishing.

I also haven’t missed the temptation of conference dessert platters. The petits fours seem so delectable. They’re hard to resist, even for someone who has to watch his sugar intake. But they’re soooo appealing. From past experience I know looks are deceiving, yet I wonder if this is the hotel pastry chef who finally understands cardboard is not an essential ingredient of a Napoleon. So I sample a few morsels, secure in the thought none of my fellow conference attendees will squeal to Gilda about my indiscretion. By the time she reads this blog, I’ll have gone back on the dessert wagon and assumed full deniability mode.

Postscript: I was wrong. I did wind up getting screwed by congestion. Seems when I wrote this blog sitting in the Chicago airport around 7 pm, my fellow passengers and I were under the impression the thunderstorms we saw on the weather maps and reports on our smartphones caused the delay. Not so, it turns out. I was enlightened to the real reason as I deplaned around 11:30 pm at La Guardia. When I asked one of the pilots where the thunderstorms were that delayed us, she blithely related the airline always intended us to arrive two hours late, even if our plane had been waiting at O’Hare on time. Air traffic flow, or more precisely, too much air traffic into and out of La Guardia, made a late arrival in New York standard operating procedure. So much for truth in scheduling! Congestion! Argh!!!!

Postscript 2: Slight correction to my Wednesday post on Target, Chick-fil-A and same-sex marriage. The Matt Bai article from the Sunday NY Times magazine appeared July 22. I had written July 17 because when I looked it up on The Times Web site, the article carried a dateline of July 17, when it was first posted to the Internet. I never bothered to check what day of the week July 17 fell on. Another example of how it’s hard to trust anything you read these days and fact-checking is a lost art.