Another sad reminder of how fast things can change in the retail industry. They had over 9,000 stores in 2004 and a decade later they’re bankrupt with only 51 franchises left. A fickle bunch us Americans are with our technology–streaming is a lot better than driving to browse shelves in a store. (A Read More…
Author: RetailGuy
I have worked in retail for over 40 years. I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the completely unbelievable.
How Lazy Can People Get?
A long time ago there was an episode of the TV show “The Outer Limits” where a race of beings had become so dependent on devices to do their work for them that their bodies evolved into big blobs of fat and they could no longer get out of their chairs. They kidnapped humans to Read More…
The Coca-Cola You’ll Never See On Shelves
Well here’s one I’ve never heard before. When you say “White Coke” I think most people would think of cocaine, (which was actually originally an ingredient in Coca-Cola) but there was a clear version of Coke produced for a Soviet leader decades ago. They have a lot of flavors–vanila, lemon, lime, cherry, coffee and Read More…
How Millennials Are Shaking Up Valentines Day
It will be interesting to see how it impacts retail sales in general, but it seems that the 24-35 year old “Millennials” are spending less money on the good ol’ flowers and boxed chocolates and more time with each other. Time is more valuable to them as they are spending more time working so Read More…
34 Trader Joe’s Products That Are Totally Worth It
The fine folks over at Buzzfeed asked their readers to come up with their favorite items at Trader Joe’s and this is what they came up with. I’m pretty sure that most of said readers are overweight, since most of the items on this list are not exactly found in the healthy foods section. Read More…
Why Retail Is Different From An Office Job
There are those of us who work in retail, and the rest of the world that has a NORMAL job. People who work in a office just don’t fully comprehend the idea of working short-staffed, under constant pressure and worst of all, not having a water cooler to gather around. (In fact, there’s usually not Read More…
Suspected Lakeland Walmart shoplifter dies after being detained
This news article was posted on a Facebook page for Walmart employees and the responses were all over the board. Of course everyone was sad about a person dying, but there were varying opinions about the whole thing. Some felt the employees shouldn’t have confronted him and thus contributed to his death, although it’s unknown Read More…
Confessions of a Retail Worker
From
The 11 Biggest Food Flops Of All Time – Business Insider
I’ve talked about the purple ketchup before, but some of these are almost as bad. I probably tried New Coke just to see what the fuss was all about, but never had the inclination to eat baby food, Pepsi in the morning, or celery flavored Jell-O. And I do remember looking Read More…
Bernie Sanders vs. Walmart
Here’s a story from the Boston Globe about Bernie Sanders attacking Walmart’s family, who apparently has more wealth than the bottom 40% of the U.S. population. While that is a scary statistic, the writer correctly points out that he shouldn’t be attacking Walmart per se, but rather the economic system we have Read More…