The comment about retail falling off is a good one. As long as you have a presence on the web all you need is one storefront and a warehouse.

47th Street Photo was into the mail order thing long before there was a web, and even thought they went through some rough times during the late 90's they are still around. A place I used to buy from, The Camera Shop in Fort Worth, closed over 20 years ago and lots of other camera retailers have as well.

ShopBots (are they still called that?) are also cutting margins on internet retailers. It really just comes down to how much service can you give over the net because you cannot compete on price unless you can get a really big discount from the distributor.

And with so many places offering free delivery..... That saves you additional time and money.

I think the answer to surviving in retail is to provide killer service. It is really the only thing retailers have to sell.

Something tells me that you heard that one the Summer after you graduated from high school.

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2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

I asked a co-worker (who invests in gold) about this. He basically said, "Yeah? So what. Black market gold has been a market since forever."

Okay.


Then he asked a question that I thought was really intriguing. I'm sure somebody here knows the answer and can save me from having to Google it myself: What happened to Hussein's black market gold purchases made between GW 1 and GW II?

OK.... Here goes nothing.....

The 1934 Ford Sedan, with a heater, sold for $835. The 'Gold Reserve Act of 1934 set the price of gold at $35 an oz. So you would need right at 24 oz. of gold to buy a well equipped Ford with a V-8, a heater and safety glass.

Today 24oz. of gold at $1650 an oz. equals $39,600. ($1650 is the spot price of gold as I write this).

A Duesenberg in 1934 sold for around $6,500. This was considered an average price since you could really go nuts with a custom body if you wanted to, and a custom body would add about $2,500 to the price. But if you were willing to settle for what the dealer had in stock.....

$6,500 divided by $35 would be 186 oz. of gold, which today would be worth $306,900.

A totally restored 1934 Ford Sedan today sells for around $40,000, but it is tough to find one that has not been chopped up into a street rod. The average sale price (in 2011) of a 1934 Duessy is $634,000, but there is a lot of collector value in there like there is with the Ford.

So it looks like with the Ford gold you could buy a well equipped Ford Mustang, and the Duessey gold would get you an entry level Rolls-Royce.

Did any of this make any sense?

My thoughts exactly. Even though lots of baby-boomers like me still subscribe to the "shop til you drop" theory, many younger people are quite comfortable buying stuff on-line. It makes me wonder what will happen to the 60,000 sq/ft stores that will only need 20,000 sq/ft of space?

Speaking of large store buildings.

A retailer here in town recently built a new building that is about twice the size of their old one which was rather big to begin with. This retailer sells farm supplies and Ranchers will come in from 60 miles away to shop there. But after driving such a distance they don't want to come back to pick up something they ordered, so the store is really a warehouse that you can walk all around in. Pens and feeders take up a lot of room.

Still, there are places cropping up that sell what you need and offer delivery, too. If you have been in the business long enough you know what you are ordering when you see it online.

The building the farm store vacated is now a furniture store which is something else that hogs up a lot of real estate. This is an example of a place where the customer must feel the goods before they buy them, so they will continue to need large buildings.

I hope someday to pick up a large building to build a TV studio in. Another use would be an indoor salvage yard for higher end autos.

A grain elevator in Oklahoma City has been turned into a rock climbing club, and another grain elevator in Dallas is now a set of lofts. They look kind of odd inside, but they sure are silent.