Ghost Stores and the Long Road Ahead

by Richard Reeve on January 28, 2009

in @CCSeed

Road home...
Image by ccseed via Flickr

The empty aisles I found while visiting Binghamton, NY should not have surprised me, but they did.  Both The Home Depot and Lowe’s were ghost towns. Skeleton staffs and perhaps a dozen folks wandering through the aisles.  So much empty space.

And then I stoped in to see what was happening over at Circut City with their “going out of business sale.”  Not much.  They were reducing items 10% to 30% and it was clear by accessing the few that were scanning the shelves, no one was convinced that the reductions were actually deals.  Not one purchase was made while I was in the store.

The American consumer has pulled the emergency brake, pulled it on hard.  Over a decade ago I recall a friend saying that the rest of the world fears that the American public will wake up and stop all the crazy spending, the consumerism addiction.  Guess what world, the day is here.

The waters keep receding, keep drying up.  How far do you think this could go?  Is anybody really being honest in their assessment?   I think we’ve only begun to walk a long road of recovery, but where we are headed is not going to equal the vision posited in the Government bailouts.

We are changing our behavior, and that’s going to take us to an entirely new place.  Consumption doesn’t equate to happiness.  Never did.  Never will.

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  • Richard,

    The impact on our consumption is affecting everything, from how it is now hip and trendy to be frugal to how companies (and people) are thinking more local. The downside is our economy - jobs, families, homes, healthcare, education, everything. Our government can not do everything for us, nor should it, AND, nor should we expect it to.

    Our founding fathers realized that the greatest challenge in our experiment in government was to carefully balance our new freedoms to build and create ourselves against the need to protect and care for our country. The assumption was that government should not get too big, else we fall prey to corruption, and increasing forms of government control.

    I believe you are correct, in that we have a long road ahead of us. We can either forge a new path, take the road less traveled to make all the difference in the world, or, we can try to save what didn't work simply because its "comfortable". I'm not for change that is just for change sake, but I am for thoughtful and reasonable new approaches to our new condition. Unfortunately, so far, none of that is happening yet - its partisan politics, as usual, on all sides! :-(

    <abbr>Mark Cummuta´s last blog post..Gag Me with a Contract: These Software Licensing Tactics Should Be Illegal</abbr>
  • Richard,
    Whenever I look toward that empy, all I can do is fill it with action. Action is the only thing I know that makes change.

    A friend once told me that he had realized that every successful person he knew did only two things -- talk and move. I'm doing my best at working on getting those right.

    I agree that satisfaction and happiness wasn't ever found in spending. :)

    <abbr>Liz Strauss´s last blog post..REACHING OUT - EDUCATION & COMMUNITY</abbr>
  • Hello Liz!

    It means a great deal to me that you have weighed in on this post. It's been interesting to push in this direction and uncover how real folks are being with the situation.
    I agree that action is key, and to that I'd add action rooted in caring.

    As a nation, so many of the choices that have been made seem to have lost the sense of responsibility to anything more than our own narrow interests.
    As citizens, we cannot afford to let that example let us off the hook.
  • Rick

    I had the same observation last week at both Circuit City and Home Depot. While at Circuit City - I thought that the discounts we not really a deal at 10 to 30% - not enough for me to trade cash for toys. I recall thinking that "Circuit City is going out of business yet there not really clearing the shelves at the modest discounts - do they have a disconnect with their situation?"

    I would also say that for me as a consumer - changing habits or addictions are hard - until you reach a point where the fear or pain of not changing is greater then the fear of the change. – I didn’t buy any discretionary items!
  • Hi Mike,
    I think a disconnect is occurring at places like Circuit City. I hope we all find new ways to relate to our consumeristic tendencies.
  • penina
    Hi Richard,
    The idea that we are re-thinking ourselves and that we don't know the outcome is inspiring.

    Can inspiration come from feeling disturbed and a little spooked? Well, why not? I have an inborn faith in the little light that shines out from our humanness.
  • Hello Penina,
    I think inspiration and motivation can certainly rise from difficulties, challenges, and what appears to be a dead end road. Sometimes it's when we come to the end of the line, the a completely different solution emerges, one that otherwise would have remained out of sight, out of mind.
  • Oh, I meant to add this:

    I love the photo posted for this blog!!!! :)

    <abbr>Henie´s last blog post..Wednesday Wishes</abbr>
  • I don't even go to stores to be able to observe "emptiness" there. But just driving past brand new shopping centers that are completely EMPTY of tenants is a somber reminder of the truth.

    In my research of the top 20 trends for 2009 (which I will share in just a bit) more and more people are "hand-making" stuff rather than buying.

    Thanks for an interesting post, Richard!

    Best Always,
    Henie

    <abbr>Henie´s last blog post..Wednesday Wishes</abbr>
  • That's an interesting insight Henie. If more and more people are going to make stuff, perhaps the place to be selling is in providing the staple supplies, mush like a frontier trading post.
  • I live about a mile from what is arguably one of the most upscale malls in the country. The parking lot is always full, the mall is populated, but my economic indicator is the Apple store -- where it once looked like a mosh pit it is now comparatively empty. Rather than mindless consumption to have what everyone else seems to have or want, we as Americans should support the products and services that mean something to us. We are the engine that powers the train.
  • Thanks for the comment Susan. I wonder how different the economy will look when we emerge from this thing. Perhaps it will be less about plastic and more about...? What might it look like? I wonder...
  • I live on an island, and though beautiful and serene, when I go "off island" I often feel a sense of urgency to buy things that I may or may not need because I don't have access to them at home. It is the dichotomy of island living because the experience is not exclusive to my household. Over the past 12 months my entire perspective has changed, and I am traveling less, certainly buying less and have an awareness when I am exposed to product that is new for me.
    Change is hard, but accountability is necessary. Thanks.

    <abbr>Kerry Quinlan-Potter´s last blog post..If We Build It They Will Come</abbr>
  • That's an amazing perspective you bring to the discussion Kerry. I imagine the difference is both startling and abrupt. Thank you for commenting.
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