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Thread: Market Disruptions Thread (aka Millennials ruin EVERYTHING!)

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    Relaxing and enjoying life MR2 Fan's Avatar
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    Market Disruptions Thread (aka Millennials ruin EVERYTHING!)

    I wanted to post a new thread regarding this topic, and you can feel free to just read along or add your own thoughts/info.

    As we've seen, many established markets recently are being disrupted by new technologies/companies.

    I figured I would make a list and my thoughts as I feel it is very important to recognize this paradigm shift and being able to predict what may come next.

    The markets that are either being changed massively right now or expected in the near future:

    Retail (Amazon and, well, Amazon)
    Music (first it was Napster, then Itunes, now Spotify, etc.)
    Movies & TV Shows (Netflix and other streaming services getting their own exclusive movies and awards)
    Cable/Satellite TV vs. Cord-Cutters (ESPN is losing out big time)
    Currency (Cryptocurrency, boom, bust?)
    Automotive (electric and auto-pilot changes specifically)
    Taxi Services (Uber and Lyft vs. existing Taxi companies with often violent consequences)
    Large Restaurant Chains losing ground to smaller, quick service restaurants and things like UberEats coming out now with delivery
    Grocery (not really a thing yet, but will be more common I think)


    Looking back, every industry has gone through major changes in the past century or so...but they were seemingly more gradual and not completely overhauled within a 5-10 year span.

    I do think Millennials are a major contributor to these changes, but as most of us know, just blaming them isn't the solution. The problem is the people who have been in business for a long time can't predict what they want very well.

    There's a youtube channel, L2Inc. about business disruptions and he discussed how brand names don't matter as much anymore in the era of Alexa and Google Home.




    Ironically, the small companies who were the upstarts challenging the big companies a few decades ago are becoming juggernauts in the new space.

    Consider Apple, Google (erm, "Alphabet"), Amazon....how much just these 3 companies control

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    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    Relaxing and enjoying life MR2 Fan's Avatar
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    That and people want things instantly delivered...cheaper.

    When I think of customer service, I think of how friendly someone is, etc. but ironically that part is what will be mostly gone in a few years as most things get automated....which also needs to be considered of course. The market of automation and if socialism has to return in some form.

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    mAdminstrator Random's Avatar
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    Saw a comment on FB or reddit the gist of which was "all these so-called disruptions happened because of a failure of customer service."

    Commenter went on to list off a few of the obvious ones:
    Netflix: people were tired of late fees, etc from brick and mortar rentals
    Uber/Lyft: taxi pricing, taxi cars, taxi unions
    Streaming audio and mp3 services: high CD album prices, mailed-in recordings with only a couple good songs, etc.
    Streaming video: increasingly crappy television shows, industry resistance to DVRs, high cable/satellite rates

    Tesla's retail-store dealer model could be added to that list, probably.

    Interesting thought.
    Whoomah!

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    mAdminstrator Random's Avatar
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    Sears and JCPenney should have been in a prime spot for instant delivery around the US--huge stores, sold everything, everywhere. Totally missed the boat, though.
    Whoomah!

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    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Random View Post
    Sears and JCPenney should have been in a prime spot for instant delivery around the US--huge stores, sold everything, everywhere. Totally missed the boat, though.
    Sears used to do that, minus the "instant" that we have come to expect today. When I was a kid, we had a Sears Catalog Store in our small town. It was a storefront that always had a washer & dryer on display in the window. You could also pick up the magical Sears Wish Book around Christmas. It was about four inches thick and had a huge toy section that I used to drool over.

    There wasn't much else in the store except a counter where you placed your order and a loading dock in the back where their truck dropped off those horrible Toughskins jeans a few days later.

    Then, as a teen and young adult living in a city with a large Sears store at the mall, I learned to buy tools there and ask advice from the older gentlemen working in the hardware department.

    One day I went in and all the old guys were gone, replaced by idiot teenagers who couldn't find their backsides with a mirror and a stick. I think that was the beginning of the end for Sears. It sure has been a long, slow death, however. I'm still mad at Sears for buying Lands' End. Suddenly the wonderful Hyde Park dress shirts I had been wearing for years got more expensive while also made of thinner material and a different cut. But I digress, as usual.

    Seems to me all this Amazon stuff isn't much different than in days gone by, where people placed their orders from a catalog (now the internet) and received their order in a week or so (now overnight, if not sooner).

    I sure wouldn't want to be in the big-box brick & mortar retail business right now. Just look at Colorado-based Sports Authority, formerly the #2 sporting goods retailer in the country with 425 stores around 2012. Now they don't exist.

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    Ask me about my bottom br FaultyMario's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by George View Post
    I'm still mad at Sears for buying Lands' End. Suddenly the wonderful Hyde Park dress shirts I had been wearing for years got more expensive while also made of thinner material and a different cut. But I digress, as usual.
    Stuff like this has me thinking about having shirts (and maybe pants) made by a tailor or cuts-lady (whatever you call that in English), of course we developing worldies have the luxury of cheap manual labor... how bad do you yanks have it?
    acket.

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    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FaultyMario View Post
    Stuff like this has me thinking about having shirts (and maybe pants) made by a tailor or [a seamstress ], of course we developing worldies have the luxury of cheap manual labor... how bad do you yanks have it?
    Yanks have it fine. But some of us (I, anyway) live in a fantasy world where we think everything should be inexpensive, good quality, and readily available. You can have any two of those, but all three at once is difficult to find.

    My biggest gripe about modern retail is that it can be tough to find something you like and want more of the same in different colors and patterns. Or, for things that aren't clothes, once something wears out and you need another, that kind isn't made any more and the replacement is cheap and flimsy compared to the one you used to have -- and more expensive, of course.

    I think modern retail works like this:

    Let's say "Famous Brand" shirts have been around forever. Your father wore them and his did too. But now, they're all made in China or wherever and there is no consistency of manufacture.

    You go down to the local department store and see a Famous Brand shirt you like. It has all the features you like -- reasonably priced, looks good, has your preferred fabric and features, and, best of all, it fits really well.

    You might take it home and wear it a couple times and wash it a couple times to make sure it doesn't shrink or anything. Great. Now you want several more in different colors and patterns.

    They no longer exist.

    That batch sold out at your favorite retailer weeks ago. No other stores nearby carries that exact style. However, right this minute there is a container ship crossing the Pacific with a thousands of new Famous Brand shirts. Hooray!

    Not so fast.

    This time around, a different overseas shirt factory bid a lowest price to Famous Brand headquarters in the USA than the factory that made the shirts the last time. So the new place got the order for a years' supply of mens' shirts to ship to the USA. FB sent them the specifications for the shirts, but the different factory made them slightly differently. No gauntlet buttons, to cut costs. Thinner material. A different collar. Different back darts. Averaged sleeve sizing instead of exact. New and improved (but actually awful) "wrinkle-free" fabric. DIFFERENT FIT. Whatever. They are not the same as before.

    So you learn to put up with the ones you like less than the old. Or you try a different brand and start the process over.

    That has been my story, anyway, for the last several years. It's hard to find shirts I like, and when I do, I can't find any more.

    "Buy online", you say? Well, I used to, until I couldn't trust Lands' End anymore. Read reviews of their Hyde Park shirts going back a couple years and you'll see what I mean. I had fifteen or twenty of their Hyde Park shirts that lasted through YEARS AND YEARS of commercial laundering and light starch. They were made in Hong Kong and lasted like redwood trees.

    When my supply started running low, Sears had bought Lands' End and the reviews online at that time were HORRIBLE. Guys were yelling about how they'd worn those shirts for twenty years but now the sizing was different and the new collars were too low to get a necktie completely under in the back.

    Right now I have a few LL Bean shirts that seem okay, but I'm frustrated with them for opening a retail store near me and filling it mens' dress shirts with exact sizing - not just S, M, L, and XL. Patterns straight out of The Preppy Handbook. They also had polo shirts and nice trousers. when they opened near me, I thought I was set for life!

    BUT THEN, they removed anything even remotely appropriate for a professional office job in favor of canoes, hiking gear, camping gear, and wrinkly adventure shirts with epaulets and pleated pockets that would look fine on safari but not at work. Damn.

    Yes, I can call them or order through their website, but I can't try them on first that way, and I'm not one to pack up stuff and ship it back. I don't have the time or interest in doing business that way. I want to buy in person, at least until I know what I like. Then I'm happy to re-order online, until they change their specifications without telling anyone. Lands' End did this with "my" shirts, and apparently LL Bean did it with their Double L Polo shirts, which got scathing reviews online for changing to a new "slim fit" without telling anyone, just after I bought a couple and decided I liked them.

    So then I found some Arrow button-down shirts I liked at Sears (go figure). The material is a little thin, but otherwise the shirts look good and fit well. I bought two. Went back to get more. All gone. Thinking I'd give Amazon a shot for once, I searched all the different numbers in the shirt - the one on the main label and also the ones on the tag sewn in near the bottom with laundering instructions. I couldn't find any that seem to be the same "model" of shirt online ANYWHERE - not at Amazon, not at various department stores' websites, and not at Arrow's own website.

    So, the next time I need a couple new shirts, I'll wander into some random department store and roll the dice. Again.

    First-world problems, I know. And this post is way too long. But it's fun to have a new topic to discuss here at the GTXF to distract from the same tired old threads.
    Last edited by George; August 23rd, 2017 at 09:11 AM.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by George View Post
    So, the next time I need a couple new shirts, I'll wander into some random department store and roll the dice. Again.
    Totally understand and agree with your pain.

    But perhaps this is also the result of companies being too customer-centric... most people wants new cheap stuffs... and that's what we have!

    If you want something really good, higher quality material & craftsmenship, then you'll have to pay extra for it! 1st world problems can always be solved with extra money!

    In the future, I'm sure technology will be able to solve this problem. You can probably go to a store or online... scan in your measurements, pick the material and style you want... and robots will be able to tailor make the stuff for you and have Amazon drones deliver it to your closet directly... you should be able to save a copy of your purchase and should you wish to order another color of the same shirt, surely a robot will be able to reproduce one exactly!

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