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user-inactivated  ·  2474 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Amazon Says It Will Buy Whole Foods In $13.7 Billion Deal : The Two-Way : NPR

Dude. No.

Car analogy first. This is a list of Defunct American Car Companies. Some of them started out as coach companies, some of them started out as other things and tried their hands at cars when cars took off. Know what happened with cars? It started as a boom and eventually became survival of the fittest. The companies who had the best resources, the best capital, and the ability to survive the depression and two world wars were the ones that won out. Coach companies may have died, but car and car manufacturing lead to an economic boom. Car companies came about, then parts companies that made parts for car manufacturers, repair shops, gas stations, dealerships, on and on and on. The coach companies that died, died because either they became something else or because they refused to transition, but more jobs came about.

So yeah, if retail does fucking die, the workers are screwed. Not only because they'll be out of a job, but because this country has almost zero fucking chance of ever letting something like Basic Universal Income happen. This country voted for Trump. This country can't get its health care together. This country doesn't second guess all of the massive corporations and special interest groups that have their fingers in all levels of the government in so many different ways.

Back to fucking retail. Companies all over the place are being massive, massive fuck ups. It's either adapt, or die, and they all fucking double down on shit tons of stupid. Here's some random fucking thoughts that I had on the drive home from work today.

Sears and Amazon - Fucking shit. Sears doesn't know if they'll make it through the fucking year. You wanna talk about Amazon? YOU USED TO BE ABLE TO ORDER A GOD DAMN HOUSE THROUGH SEARS! They fucking owned the catalog distribution business and they were fucking tits amazing at it. When Amazon came about, someone at Sears should have said "Hot tits, these guys are on to something. We have the institutional knowledge through our catalog division to follow Amazon's example and do it fucking better. We'll be God damn amazing at it too, cause we're fucking Sears." Know what happened? The fuckers sat holding their dicks in their hands for so long, they got bought by fucking K-Mart in the mid-2000s. Let me repeat that again. Sears fucked up so hard, they got bought by K-Mart. Amazon came out in the early '90s. If you told investors in '90s that that was gonna be Sears' fate, they'd fucking laugh at you.

Other Models Have you ever been to a good, quality mom and pop deli or butcher? Go inside, fucking talk to the guys behind the counter. They'll tell you everything you want to know about certain cuts of meat, what kinds of food and drinks to pair it with, and even give you recipe suggestions. They take the time to make sure you enjoy the fucking product that you're paying your own fucking money for. Same for good comic shops. Same for good craft supplies stores. On and on and on. Maybe, instead of big retail trying to fucking hire people at minimum fucking wage to push products fast, which is fucking miserable for everyone involved, they hire knowledgeable people who are passionate about what they're selling and are paid fucking well for the advice and the services they can offer. If grocery stores are willing to staff sommeliers for wine tastings, what's keeping retail stores from doing something similar?

Have you ever heard of a Retailer's Coopertive? Basically, it's a bunch of companies getting together and pooling their resources. It's usually smaller companies, that have maybe from 1-20 stores, but in this way, they can have the same buying power big companies have. Wal-Mart is massive. Amazon is massive. Part of the reason they're doing well, is because they're MASSIVE. Can you imagine if larger companies, say, Kohl's, The Gap, and JCPenny all got together and tried to form a retailer's coopertive? FUCK. Their buying power would be FUCKING SICK. Shit, that's half the reason companies try to buy each other in the first fucking place. I'd half be willing to bet, this method would be a lot less risky and a lot less controversial than trying to fucking form fucking monopolies.

Fucking Study Other Companies Know who's doing amazing? Micro-brewers. Why? I don't fucking know. But I bet there's something there that retail can learn from. Know who else is doing amazing? Restaurants. Why? Fuck if I fucking know. But I bet there's something there that retail can learn from. When Wal-Mart came about, they fucking turned distribution tactics on their head overnight and companies were rushing to emulate that.

Look. I don't know jack shit about how to run a business. I can barely run my own fucking personal life. But shit man, if I can see half the shit going on and these fucking butt monkies that run these companies can't try and figure shit out, fucking embarrassing man. They fucking deserve to fail. But the workers? The workers don't deserve to be let down.