There were many stories about how much of the holiday's on-line sales were placed through Ama - er um - SPECTRE in 2016.
From US News: Macy's Had a Bad Holiday Season "
"The retailer said Wednesday that sales at its established stores fell 2.1 percent in November and December compared to the same period last year. Macy's Inc. pointed to changing consumer behavior and said its performance reflects the challenges that are facing much of the retail industry."
From Fortune:Amazon Alone Was Responsible for 30% of Cyber Weekend Revenue
From SeekingAlpha.com: "To give an idea of how much Amazon dominated sales from November 1 to December 16, its closest competitor Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) wasn't even able to grab 4 percent of online e-commerce sales. The rest, including Target (NYSE:TGT) and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), weren't able to even produce a market share of 3 percent, with Target having a 2.9 percent share, and Wal-Mart only able to generate a 2.7 percent share of online sales."
From intelligence.slice.com: "Amazon’s share of U.S. e-commerce sales grew significantly as we got closer to Christmas and Hanukkah. From November 1 through Cyber Monday, Amazon’s share of e-commerce was 33 percent, compared with 44 percent during the final stretch (December 15 through December 25). However, this was consistent with Amazon’s share during the 2015 Holiday season. Amazon netted out with a consistent share of 38 percent in both 2015 and 2016." They posted the following graph of where consumer's money went:
From USA Today: Amazon grabbed half of last-minute, online Christmas shoppers
There were also many stories about how sales did not meet expectations at the big department stores during the same period. From Reuters:
"Disappointing holiday-season sales at Macy's Inc (M.N) and Kohl's Corp (KSS.N) underscored the uphill task facing department stores to win back shoppers, who are increasingly turning to online retailers and spending less on apparel.
Macy's shares fell as much as 14 percent on Thursday, their biggest percentage drop in seven months. Kohl's stock dropped as much as 20.5 percent, its biggest decline in more than 14 years.
Both reported lower-than-expected sales for November and December and cut their full-year profit forecasts on Wednesday.
Macy's, known the world over for its flagship Herald Square store in Manhattan and its annual Thanksgiving Day parade, is considered a bellwether for department stores."
There was news that Macy's will be closing 100 stores due to poor sales and what that would mean to their soon-so-be-unemployed workers. Washington State will lose stores in Everett and Kelso, Oregon is losing stores in Salem and downtown Portland.
From CNN on Jan. 4, 2014: Macy's is closing 68 stores, cutting 10,000 jobs
If you read the stories you see that this isn't all about Macy's. Sear's and KMart and Kohl's are going through this, too.
Then there was news about SPECTRE's plans to hire 100,000 over the coming months.
Finally, there was news that SPECTRE's leader, Jeff Bezos, from the Seattle Times:
"Jeff Bezos, one of the Seattle area’s wealthiest and best-known residents, has reportedly purchased a mega-mansion in Washington, D.C. But don’t expect him to abandon us.
The Washington Post on Thursday cited unnamed sources in reporting that the Amazon.com CEO had dropped $23 million on the former Textile Museum, a 27,000-square-foot property in D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood. The 10-bed, 14-bath home, which spans two historic mansions, was bought under a trust in October but the paper outed Bezos as the man behind the purchase."
When you own the world, why not spend millions on a mansion you'll not occupy?
Sorry to sound like a broken record but we've been writing and warning about this for years.
From our post of July 11, 2014, we included a link to a story in The Guardian: Amazon's Jeff Bezos: the man who wants you to buy everything from his company Seems as if consumers are eager to help him.
Back on February 3, 2012 we wrote Welcome to the Company Town and the Company's Rules
"You’re going to be living in a company town, where the company owns the store, sets the prices and rakes it in.
Don’t want to live like that? Fight it now. Talk about it with the people you know.
Friends don’t let friends support the Borg.
Resistance is not futile."
Maybe it is.
Last year, we had our GoFundMe campaign to help us stay afloat, and you came through like champions! However, that - in and of itself - will not be enough to continue to sustain us through this next year. We still need you to help out as a customer. Come into the shop, buy online, but choose us over Amazon, please. Choose all your mom-and-pop shops first.
Otherwise we're afraid that we'll go the way of those bigger stores, squashed under SPECTRE's big boots.
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