I know everyone lives in different areas on MMM but you go 3 miles from where I live in pretty much any area and you can find pretty much anything from all the big box clothing/retail stores (Kohls, Target, Kmart, Sears, Tjmax et..) Every chain restaurant by x10 in some cases (Mc Donalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway, Applebees, etc....) the grocery stores, Lowes, HD, Menards, et...
I am really starting to see the effect of the combination of online shopping, Amazon, and just to many damn places to split the 1$ out there and so on and was just having a conversation with my 2 youngest telling them what it was like when I was growing up. There was really only Mc Donalds or Burger King and they just built the first Taco Bell in our area. Malls were the thing with Sears , JC Penneys , Boston store as anchors and so on.
Back in the late 90's I believe 97 i sold a small chain of retail stores I owned that I got into a franchise early and the money I made after paying rent in a mall, % to the mall after a certain amount of sales, % to Franchiser the only real money I made was when I sold them. I made what I made too only because the Company that bought them out didn't want Franchisees and I knew that so being the President of the Franchise committee I made a call and long and short sold them in 20 minutes. So every once in awhile I go and look to see how that has evolved and what I use to pay for a full build out with inventory was 150k most now are at least 400k plus.
So to sum up I have always said there are only so many $'s to go around for certain things and where /when is this going to end. If you have a family like me to go out and eat anywhere once, I can feed my family usually 2 if not 3 days (family of 6) by buying smart at Aldis etc.. and making our own meals.But we do have an entertainment Budget to do things. The big Box Clothe retailers are going down fast. Sears/Kmart just filed for Bankruptcy protection no surprise there. 2 losers that came together a deal I never understood. JC Pennys is a penny stock now. You can literally drive past one fast food place or another and everyone has a sign in front of them hiring. There is a big Gas Station Convenience chain by us that is killing all the smaller gas stations and you can start there for $12.65 an hour or $14.65 and hour if you work third shift with 100's of jobs available in our area. So its going to be curious how this all plays out. Pretty sure I heard that someone bought Toys R Us which has been in trouble for as long as I can remember and opening up a limited amount. The malls by us are all suffering. So what is the landscape going to look like. It seems despite all the places going out of business overall more new stuff is being built then knocked down. I definitely think a lot more of all these chain restaurants and box store things will go out , some like Target and Walmart will be fine as they reinvent themselves and fight for there share on the internet. Some will become just stores to look at things to order online and there will be some that I am sure that will survive for the consumer that likes to touch and feel BUT in my area its very apparent things are changing. Whats it look like where you live if in an area with pretty much everything and how do you think things are going to look 20 years from now? Nursing homes are booming. All the ones by us have double in size and more and more are popping up. Seems like since the last crash more churches and temples, Bank branches have been built than ever. I could go on and on but just thought be good topic of conversation since the landscape effects most everyone. As I get up in my years I see alot of good and actually feel for some of the smaller guys out there. Will the government at some point put in a stop some how on a company like Amazon? Walmart basically was the monster years back and wiped out small town Americas small retails stores.