October: "Retailers Report Sales Collapse"

Sales off 28 percent at Neiman Marcus!

[jsinger]

"Sales at Neiman Marcus, the luxury department store, dropped nearly 28 percent in October compared with the same month last year. Sales fell 20 percent at Abercrombie & Fitch, nearly 17 percent at Saks, 16 percent at Gap and nearly that much at Nordstrom."

[nytimes.com...]

"Even Wal-Mart, whose sales at stores open at least a year were up 2.4 percent in October, began a big discount program on Thursday,"

[pbradish]

Not surprised!

[Essex_boy]

Many small retailers in teh town around me have closed down. Things are not good

[jsinger]

I'm not seeing established mom and pops shutting down...yet. They don't usually have debt. When times get tough they work more hours, work harder.

But where I live, the home market never rose much and hasn't fallen much lately. Almost no one was flipping houses. In places like Florida and California, there was a debt culture; I'm sure many owners drained cash from their businesses in order to play the real estate boom, or just to live high.

It's the larger chains that are closing around me. Also seeing more restaurant closings, but that field has been over-stored for years. Most extreme example is downtown Seattle where every third business is a coffee shop and every sixth storefront is a sushi franchise.

--
Was reading an article yesterday about retailing traditionally supplying backup jobs for laid off factory workers and white collar types. This time those jobs aren't often available. Walmart can't hire everyone!