The Fed just tweeted a brutal chart showing the sorry state of US department stores

[think]

The Fed just tweeted a brutal chart showing the sorry state of US department stores

By Sam Ro - Nov 27 2015

It's Black Friday, which means American consumers everywhere are knocking down doors in their efforts to take advantage of what they perceive to be a good deal.

But Black Friday is just one day in a year during which retailers are engaged in intense competition with their peers and the disruptors in the industry.

In particular, brick-and-mortar retailers are in a battle with the online retailers, who are able to offer lower prices thanks to lower overhead costs.

Minutes ago, the St. Louis Fed tweeted this brutal look at the state of the department store business. As you can see, sales have only declined since the early 2000s, which coincided with the advent of online retail.



Source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-department-stores-sales-trending-down-since-2001-2015-11?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Why isn't there another big red arrow heading up from 1992 to 2001?

Seriously, if I wanted to know whether this analysis is possibly correct, I'd want to see a longer graph. And some way to parse out other events. What else happened at the peak of the graph shown? Sept 11th. Following which markets tanked, America headed into a recession, and despite the 'recovery' in terms of the overall economy, for a lot of folks there hasn't really been a 'recovery'. While I'm certain online shopping has been a part of the decline for bricks and mortar stores, I'm willing to bet it's not the entire picture.

[SadWingsOfDestiny]

6. There is something to this.

Folks want to buy into the "Strong economy" concept because the 2016 election is highly dependent upon creating a view that the current administration collectively rescued us.


I believe this has as much to do with the effects of NAFTA, as well as job outsourcing with it's comprehensive impact on worker income, as it does on internet consumerism.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. It's mostly online shopping.

Dept. stores were fun to visit occasionally, but time-consuming. Web technology has superceded them in so many areas.

[SoCalDem]

8. The ascendence of shopping malls was a blip in time

Baby boomers had MONEY to burn , cars, and parents who did not worry themselves silly when we disappeared for HOURS at a time..

Families back then were more affluent..at ALL levels than today.

Communities that had thrived with "mainstreet" stores and Sears, Penneys & Wards catalogs were decimated when suburban malls popped up every few miles.

It was inevitable that these would eventually start to die off for several reasons:

1. Boomers aged out of shopping for fun
2. Walmarts
3. Younger folks don't have much extra money these days
4. Internet shopping is so much easier and cheaper too
5. Malls all look alike..have the same cheesy stores
6. See #2 & # 4
7. Modern people like the more personal experience of shopping in boutiques
8. Most stuff in department stores in malls is C R A P ..

[Downwinder]

3. Also coincides with the economy.

[Kilgore]

4. Have not been in a department store in ages

As a kid we made the trek into town once a week and stoping at a department store was not uncommon since that's where the shirts and Levis came from.

Online shopping and Amazon Prime in particular keeps our trips to town to once a month or so.

[JI7]

5. They are starting to focus more on internet sales also

[progree]

7. I wonder if those dollars are inflation-adjusted or not

If not, the decline from 1992 is much worse than shown in terms of purchasing power. $14 Billion in 1992 had the purchasing power of $23.8 Billion does today, per the Bureau of Labor Statistic's inflation calculator. In other words, for that graph to have stayed "flat" in terms of purchasing power (relative to 1992), it would have to rise from $14 Billion in 1992 to $23.8 billion today.

Not to mention population growth. If inflation-adjusted per capita spending at department stores had stayed the same, it would have to be quite a bit more than $23.8 billion today. About 27% higher than that, or $30 billion.

Now if we repeated the same exercise, but starting from the $20 billion peak in 2001....