Pier 1 Files For Bankruptcy, Warns of Dangers In Handful of Online Vendors Dominating Retail Sales (wsj.com) 101
Pier 1 Imports filed for bankruptcy Monday (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), "a victim of changing consumer tastes and an unforgiving retail environment," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Unlike many other retailers that have sought bankruptcy in recent years, the publicly traded Pier 1 -- with assets of $426.6 million and listed total debt of $258.3 million -- isn't weighed down with debt from an ill-timed leveraged buyout. Rather the company's struggles can be traced to increasing competition from online players, mass merchants and off-price retailers, such as Wayfair, TJX, HomeGoods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Cost Plus World Market and Amazon." From the report: Those rivals have increasingly moved into selling home furnishings and merchandise that were once virtually the exclusive domain of Pier 1, according to Hart Posen, a professor of management at the University of Wisconsin. "You'd see something in someone's house -- a wicker-rattan chair or an elephant-themed umbrella holder -- and know it came from Pier 1," Mr. Posen said. "You could buy it at Pier 1 or nowhere, but that's just not the case anymore."
The emergence of online operators such as Wayfair have rendered the backdrop for traditional chains all the more difficult, according to Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Brian Nagel. But there were also missteps that led Pier 1 to bankruptcy. The company was late to embrace e-commerce and was forced to build an online business from virtually nothing, said Mr. Nagel. Along the way, it had to absorb the costs of building distribution centers and other infrastructure, while also adjusting to the tighter margins from online sales. "When the company finally made its move online, it did so in a way that cannibalized the volumes and profitability of its physical stores," said Mr. Nagel. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company tried to revitalize the business with a program dubbed "Pier 1 2021: A New Day," but that effort failed.
"The bankruptcy filing comes after the chain made it through the critical holiday shopping season," adds The Wall Street Journal. "In early January, Pier 1 said it planned to close nearly half of its nearly 940 stores and a number of distribution centers. It had already hired a liquidation company to help close the locations. Pier 1 said it intends to use the bankruptcy process to complete closure of some 450 stores, including closing all of its locations in Canada."
The emergence of online operators such as Wayfair have rendered the backdrop for traditional chains all the more difficult, according to Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Brian Nagel. But there were also missteps that led Pier 1 to bankruptcy. The company was late to embrace e-commerce and was forced to build an online business from virtually nothing, said Mr. Nagel. Along the way, it had to absorb the costs of building distribution centers and other infrastructure, while also adjusting to the tighter margins from online sales. "When the company finally made its move online, it did so in a way that cannibalized the volumes and profitability of its physical stores," said Mr. Nagel. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company tried to revitalize the business with a program dubbed "Pier 1 2021: A New Day," but that effort failed.
"The bankruptcy filing comes after the chain made it through the critical holiday shopping season," adds The Wall Street Journal. "In early January, Pier 1 said it planned to close nearly half of its nearly 940 stores and a number of distribution centers. It had already hired a liquidation company to help close the locations. Pier 1 said it intends to use the bankruptcy process to complete closure of some 450 stores, including closing all of its locations in Canada."
Do they even have a web site? (Score:2)
I haven't thought of Pier 1 in decades as a place to buy something.
Re: Do they even have a web site? (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty much this.i dropped in occasionally to browse, but they had a lot of low quality mass produced items for high prices.
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Fifteen dollar candles
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Fifteen dollar candles
Do they have vagina scented candles? From what I hear, fifteen dollars is a bargain for those.
Re:Do they even have a web site? (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't keep selling at their normal markup. The game has changed and they have not changed with it.
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Yeah, this. Pier 1 always sold a lot of crap and their justification for existence was that it was hard for people to find that crap elsewhere. Now that people can buy their crap directly from the COO, let alone from mega-resellers like Amazon, there is no reason for them to exist.
I am concerned about the way Amazon is able to dominate the market, which they do largely through dumping. Oh, sorry, "loss leaders". But Pier 1 should have gone under a long time ago.
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Re:Do they even have a web site? (Score:4, Insightful)
The other thing about that is that they tried to stay in business by raising their prices, so they were selling cheap crap as if it were quality. You can only do that for so long before even the most brand-loyal customers figure out you're fucking them.
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Exactly the path that Macys is following now. My wife says the clothes at Target are of a higher quality but Macys still insists on their premium prices for most things.
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Yeah, I loved Pier 1 back in those days. They found cheap crap, yes, but interesting cheap crap and sold it cheap. Going there was a fun treasure hunt.
Then one day when I moved back into town I went there and everything had been redecorated to "upscale" from the utilitarian shelving units all along the walls. I looked at the prices of a couple items, walked out, and never went back.
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If Amazon wants to dump, that's fine with me. Because I don't have to buy anything from them if I don't want to.
If they put everyone else out of business and mark everything up 1000%, all that means is that a new company will start selling on line with loss leaders (at way lower than 1000% markup), and I can buy from the new guys.
The really lovely thing about online buying/
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The sad thing is that this is how capitalism works. I don't claim that communism is better, but capitalism is not about stability; it is a system in which a very general, even abstract consistency is maintained through constant fluctuation and change. This is because capitalist investors value a company less by its ability to maintain reasonable profits than by its ability to unreasonably increase profits. Thus when a completely new form of competition arrives (online retail), few companies are willing to t
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I bought some stuff at Pier 1 over the years. Overpriced mediocrity can’t survive in Retail today... but it was nice being able to see and touch some of their stuff in the store.
Bed Bath and Beyond isn’t far behind; I won’t shed a tear for them though.
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>Bed Bath and Beyond isn’t far behind
Yep. Seeing their empty shelves recently was a sign of the end-times for BB&B.
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It's no use bart! We've checked up and down these (Score:3)
It's no use bart! We've checked up and down these docks. From pier 1 to that pier 1 by pier 17.
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I don't shop at Amazon. I try hard not to shop at Amazon. If some website selling something has somehow disguised its Amazon front and I can't tell, I can't help it. But otherwise, I don't type "amazon.com" in my url bar or go there for buying stuff any other way.
And yet somehow sears is not dead yet (Score:2)
And yet somehow sears is not dead yet
Re:And yet somehow sears is not dead yet (Score:5, Informative)
Sears actually owned the land under most of those stores, well not anymore as that part has been successfully 'sold off' to the same company that is slowly raiding it.
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Sears is the story of the most all-time boneheaded management of a company. They were born internet-ready right out of the gate. But instead, a company that had been doing catalog sales since before Jeff Bezos's grandmother was born completely ignored the internet for... what reason?
They had the distribution/fulfillment/physical pick up locations/logistics/name recognition all ready there and waiting, and did nothing while Amazon ate their lunch.
I'd love to see what the CEO's compensation package was durin
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Agreed! My local Sears is closing now, but I was able to easily order something online and stop at the mall on the way home to pick it up. For all the levels of messed-up Sears became, they really did have the deliver-to-physical-store thing down before anyone else.
Eddie Lampert could have fixed Sears if he made some hard choices about closing stores early, killing Kmart entirely, then pouring money and resources into remaining Sears stores and pulling them out of 1985. Seriously, even though the local Sear
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SearsKmart have pulled out of my local area almost completely... seems like the merger into Sears Holdings just kept "falling knives" in the air longer...
Re:And yet somehow sears is not dead yet (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet somehow sears is not dead yet
They are very close. All their stores near me are gone.
No company was better positioned to dominate online sales than Sears. Yet they threw away every opportunity. They shut down their catalog operations in 1993. Amazon started up in 1994.
Re:And yet somehow sears is not dead yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And yet somehow sears is not dead yet (Score:5, Interesting)
The one reason left to go to Sears was for their tools, but now they're all made in China. So why would I go to Sears rather than Harbor Freight?
Most of their tools are made in China, but not all. Stanley Black & Decker, which bought Craftsman from Sears in 2017, has been slowly moving production for Craftsman tools back to the U.S. [wsj.com]
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Sure, but harbor freight has been improving faster. Many if not most of their higher end power tools are now just rebrands of relatively high quality stuff like DeWalt. Their Pittsburgh hand tools are already better than Craftsman in most cases, and the Icon stuff is all better than anything Craftsman has ever sold. There is literally no reason to shop at Sears any more.
What really doomed them was their garbage e-commerce site. It just plain didn't work much of the time (redirects leading to blank pages and
The Harbor Freight Paradox (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite what the other people say, Harbor Freight makes very cheap and low quality tools. Their sockets wobble and are inconsistently machined. You can see the glue coming out of their screwdrivers, etc. I am a hobbyist woodworker and a gear nut...like those people who play guitar for fun, but have $20,000 of gear at home...so I obsess about tools and woodworking techniques although I am a software engineer and with 2 small kids barely have time for it any more.
The other facet about tools is that if you close your eyes, the differences between a $600 fesstool saw and a $29 Drill Master circular saw from Harbor Freight really doesn't matter much. Fesstools are always a little better and they have unique tools (like the Domino) and features (Systainer and their dust collection), but about 4x the cost at which it would make sense. The HF tools is a little more wobly and won't last as long, but really doesn't impact your work much.
I never really buy anything from Harbor Freight, other than their premium US General tool storage...it's very hard to find anything of similar quality. Craftsman tool storage looks great and then you handle it and see it's cheap, thin steel....the stuff that's so thin that if I let my kids handle it, they'd dent it. You'd think they'd be OK for simple tools that are hard to screw up, but if they're so hard to screw up, they usually last forever, so why not just spend slightly more and get first rate quality?....the Harbor Freight Paradox.
Semi-related, HF is pointless because DeWalt is the greatest company ever. I love them more than Apple, Tesla, Canon, Disney, or any other favorite company. EVERYTHING they make is good. Apple? Good Laptops...terrible networking gear and terrible monitors (back when they made them). I could recommend to friends their laptop, but I'd tell them steer clear of the monitors...lower quality, stupid quirks, and you get ripped off on price. I still regret that 5k LG/Apple-exclusive I bought 3 years ago...the worst computer purchase I ever made. DeWalt? You can buy anything they make and it will be good...about 50% of the time, the best choice you could make....price is in line with quality too. For example, their drills, the best...even if you prefer Milwaukee or Bosch, you have to admit they're pretty much just as good and slightly lower price. Everything they make is professional quality. All of their prices are reasonable.
DeWalt is the only brand I blindly trust. I am confident I can buy anything they make and things will be just fine. Now that they make hand tools, I don't have to care about Harbor Freight or Sears/Craftsman (which they now own any way). They're one of the few companies that give me faith in capitalism. Lots of competition and their stuff just keeps getting better...higher quality, reasonable prices...decisions that are very pro-user. Unlike Apple's butteryfly keyboard, each DeWalt upgrade is an actual upgrade....huge tangent, but I love singing DeWalt's praises.
...and back on topic, Sears and Pier 1 aren't failing because Amazon is an unstoppable juggernaut. They're underserving their users. Pier 1 hasn't had great stuff in the last 5x I've been there...lots of merchandise, but I never saw anything I liked or that was even that good. Sears is HORRIBLE in every way...low quality, poor selection, mediocre prices.
Amazon is just ordinary competition. Lots of people prefer physical retail. Target is thriving. Home Depot is thriving (even though they suck). Best Buy is thriving and they were hit HARD by online retailers. If your formula is unreliable merchandise (if you buy something you like this year, it's gone next year), mediocre prices, nothings special about your store (Container store has lots of great exclusives in contrast)...why bother? We have m
Sidebar inbound... (Score:2)
Sidebar it is! :) (Score:2)
Have you tried any of the new HF Icon stuff?
I have not. I never will unless they adjust their prices. Those are priced waaay out of line with my budget.
I'd be quite nervous to even if I was in the market for tool storage at that price. If I am paying a premium price, part of what I am paying for is support. I buy Apple over ASUS because I know I can go to the Apple Store 3 years later and get my laptop repaired. I buy HP printers for the same reason. I buy DeWalt because I don't trust Ryobi to sell me parts 5 years later. I am pretty conf
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I'm not willing to spend the money for one of the Icon boxes yet, but that sexy black-and-green color scheme is tempting. My understanding is that they are doing next-day overnight-shipped parts for the lifetime warranty.
For the Icon hand tools, I got one of their shiny new ratchets to take apart. The machining is head and shoulders above the Pittsburgh stuff and my old Craftsman kit.
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Ryobi is all shit. Even their drill bits are shit.
HF is a mixed bag. Some of it is shit, some of it is great. You have to do homework before you buy. But all their hand tools are at least decent, and all are well-priced.
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After having been burned several times by Harbor Freight tools, you won't convince me in this lifetime that their tools are anything other than reconstituted highly compressed and polished dogshit. Even if there are, as you say, new lines that actually are quality.......give it a few years. They'll get a following and then pull the rug out.
I'd not trust HF (Score:2)
After having been burned several times by Harbor Freight tools, you won't convince me in this lifetime that their tools are anything other than reconstituted highly compressed and polished dogshit. Even if there are, as you say, new lines that actually are quality.......give it a few years. They'll get a following and then pull the rug out.
So allegedly, the hercules line is DeWalt at half the price....that people have a hard time telling the difference other than the color. However, I know DeWalt does more than they realistically have to to ensure quality. They do drop tests and I trust that their circuitry is safe and won't fail or electrocute me. But...let's say, for argument's sake, they could give you the same quality at half the price...I'd still be nervous about it. I buy DeWalt and sometimes Milwaukee or Bosch because I know they'
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Craftsman used to had a frelling *lifetime* warantee on all their hand tools. I bought old Craftsman tools at garage sales, took them home and deliberately broke them, and then took them into Sears for new ones. That's long gone, of course.
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Harbor Freight is for a tool you need to get through the project, and which would be vaguely nice to stick around for a second use later.
Generally, a bit less than renting the tool at Home Depot . . .
If it's a tool I need to have around and use, I buy a better brand.
I still use some of my grandfather's tools . . .
hawk
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They still could have survived. Despite amazon's success a lot of people still want to hold things like tools in their hand, try out clothes and furniture, or have an actual location to visit for service and warranty claims. What really killed sears was the CEO's obsession with Ayn Rand. Sears is pretty much the perfect textbook case study for toxic corporate culture, good-on-paper suicidal decisions, and bad management.
Re:And yet somehow sears is not dead yet (Score:4, Interesting)
Arguably his lack of experience would have doomed the company anyway, but certainly telling all the employees to "compete against each other" hastened the decline. (Corporate internals will never be a free market, even if you are a free market believer that strategy won't work).
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They still could have survived. Despite amazon's success a lot of people still want to hold things like tools in their hand, try out clothes and furniture, or have an actual location to visit for service and warranty claims.
But the percentage of people you're talking about is incredibly small. Not enough to compete.
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This assumes that their retail presence could only be used for brick and mortar shoppers, and not to bolster logistics and using in-store stock as online sales. Amazon has had to build out so many distribution centers and Sears had a huge potential advantage.
Walmart is an example of being able to leverage their retail footprint to make an instant gratification online experience with relatively low incremental cost. From the time they committed to do it, they were able to augment their footprint with facil
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General retail merchandise stores (aka department stores) like Sears were having problems even before Amazon rose to prominence. Best Products [wikipedia.org] filed for bankruptcy in 1997. Victim to specialty retail stores like Best Buy and Circuit City on the high end (mainly electronics), low-cost discounters like Walmart and Target at t
they killed the mail order catalog a bit to soon a (Score:2)
they killed the mail order catalog a bit to soon as well.
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So while you're correct that Sears would've done well if they'd simply converted their mail order catalog operations to the web, there really wasn't much to indicate that the future lay in that direction.
Sure there was. Lucky's and quite a few other supermarket chains were already considering online terminals to do home deliveries of produce. It never came to fruition, but many companies already were seeing the benefits of the internet and was being heavily hyped up during the 90's. If it weren't for these companies with big money dropping the idea, we would have had what Amazon is today a decade earlier. Amazon was one of the few that went all the way through it, despite decades later.
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So while you're correct that Sears would've done well if they'd simply converted their mail order catalog operations to the web, there really wasn't much to indicate that the future lay in that direction.
It was plainly obvious at that point that online was the future of commerce. I had to do one of those stupid research papers in a low-level business class during my college years in the mid-to-late-1990's, and I got randomly assigned Amazon as the subject.
I already had an Amazon account back then, and had ordered from there on a semi-regular basis by that point. My research paper started and concluded (I already knew the conclusion before I ever got assigned the project) with the realization that offline
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You are posting about the mid to late 90s. Previous posters in this thread were talking about the early 90s. That's a big difference in the interwebs timeline.
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They were basically the original "huge catalogue store that ships you things". They should've seen Amazon coming along using their own business model from 100 years ago a mile away and they should've dominated the online catalogue market.
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Psst Montgomery Ward
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You could literally buy a house from the Sears & Roebuck catalog, it came packaged in one freight car.
My great-grandmother taught school in an impoverished area of northern Michigan were all the children were from immigrant families. In most places that couldn't afford textbooks the teachers would use the bible to teach reading, but in her school the bible might be in German or French or Polish. She had to use the Sears & Roebuck catalog.
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It has been for a few years in Canada.
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On February 11, 2019, Transformco purchased substantially all of the Sears Holdings assets*. As part of that sale, Transformco acquired Sears Holdings’ customer information, including personally identifiable information.
At Transformco, we want to ensure that you know that your privacy is important to us, and that our privacy policy is just as protective of your privacy as the Sears Holdings policy.
At Transformco, we constantly look for new and innovative ways to improve y
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Never change, Pier 1...oh wait they didn't (Score:2)
Pier 1 had a pretty good exclusive gimmick going on for some time, but as noted lots of other stores starting stocking items that were in line with the wicker esthetic.
Even then Pier 1 might have been OK, if they had adapted. Maybe they could have gone higher end. Maybe they could have hacked deeper into the jungle to find even more exotic things than trad stores carried. But from what I saw the last few visits I made to the store, it never evolved to match competitors, it just stagnated.
That's the real
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From the article, we did good when there was no competition.
WE? We probably know each other...
Progress (Score:3)
The march continues...
These businesses complain about their replacement, just as the businesses they replaced complain about them - in the past 100 years we have seen the family-owned business complain about the other guy who opened a second or third store and with whom they couldn't compete, and then we saw the local business complain about the rise of nationwide chains, and then we saw the chains complain about the rise of out of town superstores and the death of the high street, and then we saw everyone complain about how unfair it is that an online business didn't have the same overheads as a bricks-and-mortar store...
Basically, nothing to see here - if they can't compete, they can't compete. Just as the family owned niche furniture store struggled to compete with them.
TJX (Score:5, Interesting)
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They can't compete with something like Homegoods, which is under the umbrella of TJX (Marshalls), one of the best-run and most efficient retail operations in existence. If you doubt this assertion, think about why this company can run hundreds of brick and mortar stores without any threat from the Walmarts and Amazons of the world.
Wow, hundreds. Good thing they aren't competing directly with Walmart and their 4,759 stores.
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Wow, hundreds. Good thing they aren't competing directly with Walmart and their 4,759 stores.
Wow, imagine that. A company [Walmart] that's been around for a greater amount of time [it was founded in 1962] has more physical locations than a company [HomeGoods] that's been around for half that time [it was founded in 1992]
Re:TJX (Score:5, Informative)
TJX brands, as a whole, operate thousands of stores, and in a very unique way. I'll explain how theses stores operate and why they're different from someone like a Walmart (or Pier 1), and why they're raking in money while their competitors are faltering --
The reason they are consistently profitable with their retail stores in the age of Amazon and Walmart is due in part to their purchasing model and the way the they merchandise their inventory. The TJX core brands didn't even have any web store until just recently (probably the last three years, due to customer demand). The items on the web store aren't what is available in the retail space (with some exceptions).
TJX buys liquidated inventory (for their brick-and-mortar locations), and parcels it out from a few central hubs to their retail locations where local managers set the prices and merchandising model (ie. how to display the products, under certain loose corporate guidelines). You can't run a web store like this (there's no concept of an "inventory" when you're buying containers of miscellaneous items, some which are received in single or very limited quantity).
The appeal of the TXJ stores is the impression of a Bazaar-like atmosphere with a very fast turn over of inventory. When you go to a Homegoods, for example, you never know what you're going to find within the haphazard arrangement of merchandise piled up any which way on the shelves (that's intentional). That's less pronounced at Marshalls which is more clothing heavy.
My Homegoods that I managed we turned the entire 250,000 square foot of inventory over every week.
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Wow. Very different approach. Kudos for the insight.
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Let me distil this gem of a post. Companies with exclusive or self made products are the only ones likely to compete with Amazon and Walmart.
Never been in any of those stores and probably never will, good read just the same.
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The Blockbuster of Furniture Stores... (Score:3)
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maybe if Blockbuster Movie Pass was not tied to dish network it could be been Netflix with same day in store movie swapping and they should of had adult as well.
Family video is still around and they rent porn
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A "frame" of reference.
Movie frame
Furniture frame
How I framed this joke I am walking through on my way out, thank you! Here all week.
Robert Riesbeck (Score:3)
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I start to get the feeling that the success or failure of companies has less and less to do with who sits at the helm...
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And before hhgreg he was brought in as CEO of Marsh Supermarkets, which did Chap 11 and then liquidation for his private equity company. This guy is a PE guy brought in to rip apart companies and liquidate them for quick profit. This has nothing to do with online retail.
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I bet the next 10 companies he works for (it will be 10 in 10 years, as he jumps jobs frequently as he tears them apart) will be sold or closed within 6 months of his arrival.
They're kinda' right (Score:4, Informative)
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I think it's crazy, and I don't shop with any of the big websites. I shop locally, with cash.
Sure you do.....
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I prefer to patronize local businesses too. But when the business becomes hostile to the customer they will look elsewhere.
Case of poin
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Pier 1 was always crappy to employees (Score:2)
Back in the 1980's and 1990's I knew people who worked for Pier 1. And it was amazing the things the managers would do to their workers.
+ The odd items everyone talked about were the taxidermy animals. One set in particular was a mongoose attacking a snake. Several times the management would imply they were one or other other. Always making sure the employee knew they were on the losing side. On one occasion I even heard a manager come right out and say the employees were lucky he couldn't get away with pay
I remember Pier 1 well (Score:2)
They had nothing worth the inflated prices for fragile and over-priced furniture.
You failed Pier 1 plain and simple (Score:2)
The reason so many brick and mortar stores are failing is because they are traditional stores that do not get new technology. The executives all want to sit around and stock their shelves with products they cut deals on with good looking or smooth talking sales reps. You don't listen to your customers and you often treat t hem like an undesired requirement for doing business where the only objective is to find a way to separate them from their cash.
If you want to stay relevant then your Brick and Motar st
Re:You failed Pier 1 plain and simple (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want your brick-and-mortar shop to stay relevant, you have to give me something I cannot get online. Convenience is NOT your friend. Nothing is more convenient than sitting down at home, clicking a few things, wait a day or two and pick up a box from the front porch. You cannot compete with that on convenience. The mere fact that I have to go to your store during your opening hours is already a killer in the convenience department. You will also have a really hard time to compete with them on price, your rent is already higher than anything they could ever pay simply due to your location not being in some godforsaken corner of the planet where they pay you to open a business, if only for the jobs you create there.
You can beat them on service, on knowledge of your goods, advice and consulation and the whole rest that is called "personal customer relationship". That is something they can't really offer until virtual reality become a thing. And lo and behold, stores that went that way are doing pretty well.
Yes, people are willing (if they're able) to pay for that. Especially in areas where they buy something expensive that they do not know a lot about. Like, say, cars or computers. And yes, furniture. Being able to see that furniture and touch it is a huge asset, why don't you use it?
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You can beat them on service, on knowledge of your goods, advice and consulation and the whole rest that is called "personal customer relationship".
And don't forget, for all that customer service you need to PAY EMPLOYEES A LIVING WAGE and provide them benefits. No one is going to be able to fuck over their employees more than Walmart, so don't try to compete with them on employee remuneration.
Warns of dangers (Score:2)
"You could buy it at Pier 1 or nowhere, but that's just not the case anymore."
IOW the market won and a monopoly dies.
Late to game (Score:1)
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Is anyone surprised? (Score:2)
Baloney (Score:2)
too high prices, too low volume (Score:2)
Obsolete business model (Score:2)
Have you been to Pier 1 lately? Junky nicknacks for the sake of junky nicknacks, in a store that looks like the aftermath of a rowdy flea market.
At one time it was a business model that worked. It doesn't anymore.
...laura
Poison Pill (Score:1)
I dunno... (Score:2)
I love the market... (Score:1)
Pier 1 Imports... (Score:2)
Wasn't this the store that seemed to have ordinary products with maybe a touch more flare, and the up-priced them as if they were luxury items?
I had gone in once or twice, and concluded it was largely a store geared exclusively to upper middle class, lower-upper class non-working spouses to expend money on frivolous versions of home products so that they did no get caught with the same item from Target.
Swedish companies have figured this out (Score:2)
Ikea has managed to stay dominant and relevant in online market by offering low prices for decent goods whose price point is achieved through mass production. Wanting to be able to see a product in person and in context is *still* a valuable resource. Pier 1 -- with a large brick and mortar presence -- could have gone down this route by producing specialty goods at low prices with high volumes. Another Swedish retailer, H&M, is also following this model -- you probably want to try on the clothing you'll