Quote:
Originally Posted by CoryB
Re Hudson Bay store closures in multiple cities for AC maintenance. It sounds plausible as a valid reason but they could also be closing to do an asset valuation or inventory count. It is definitely a little suspect that it was multiple cities and shortly after a big deal was announced.
Re Dakota Family Foods. Grocery retailing is a brutal industry. Even for the biggest players the margins are said to be 5% or less. Sure Weston and Sobeys are huge companies making lots of income but it is all about the volume they churn daily. For most grocery retailing a large part of your supply comes from one of two wholesalers, and not surprisingly they are owned by Weston and Sobeys. If you add in shrink (included thefts) you could be very close to a break even position on your operations. I've said it before these sort of closures are not unexpected and are going to increasingly be common as the grocery retailing model heavily pivots. It is going to be in person last mile stores with significantly higher costs of goods, not unlike convivence stores today, or online ordering from fulfilment centres for pickup or delivery with no non-staff access to the fulfilment center. As the early transition happens some of the early fulfilment centers are going to start life as the suburban supermakets we have now expect that staff order pickers will replace outside shoppers. We can all say we don't want this as much as we want but when the choice comes down to milk being $5 at the fulfilment center or $20 at the in person retailer the choice is pretty clear and that is just sharing the risks related to each transaction type.
|
Milk prices are set by the dairy board. But that's not the point. You've been foretelling the end of all bricks and mortar retail for years, and not only is it not dead, but it is doing pretty well overall. The people vote with their feet.