Businesses You're Amazed Are Still Around

[corco]

Add in that I'm supporting a Montana business instead of a Belgian multi-national and it's an easy call, even ignoring the fact that it generally tastes better.

To a point.  But even foreign businesses, unless they are delivering their product direct from their foreign warehouse to a store owned by foreigners, still employs many Americans.  Bud is still brewed in a dozen or so plants around the country.  Trains and trucks deliver those Buds to Distributors.  Distributors deliver it to liquor stores/restaurants/retailers.  Advertisers advertise.  There's water, quality control, Grain growers...and the list goes on.

There's still a lot of Americans involved with the resale of Bud, even if the actual entity is foreign owned.

Sure, but much like with any product, I'd rather support the American based company because maybe one day that company will overtake InBev or whatever and those workers that work for a Dutch InBev can now work for an American whatever. In the meantime I'm supporting American workers either way.

[MillTheRoadgeek]

I'd say that the businesses I'm most surprised about are:

   
• Kmart: Seems like the Big K is only really trying to make its' stores look a bit snazzier (with the new logo/slight sign changes), but by ignoring everything else. This must be Kmart's "Glided Age", really. Speaking of outdated products, I once saw a pack of batteries that expired in 2011 at the checkout line when I visited my Manassas, VA Kmart (now closed) in January 2013. Just hire a new CEO, goshdarnit!
• Don Pablo's: Don't eat there, but my town's restaurant iis really still around in 2015.

To a lesser extent...

   
• GameStop: It's still good, but really, doesn't seem to be that relevant these days. Blame it on the Steam, 'got it off the seam, blame it on the phone, 'got it off the zone... (had to make that reference  )
• Shoppers (D.C./Baltimore grocery chain): Out of all the chains, Shoppers has to be the weakest competitor in the D.C. area. The last "new" store opened in late 2007 (the Mondawmin Mall location); but it technically would have to be the Ellicott City, MD one which opened in 2011 and closed a few months ago. Also, I'd say the inside of the latest store version looks bland as heck. The only real redeeming quality would have to be the few stores that haven't remodeled yet, and those Donuts. Mmm...

[Duke87]

GameStop: It's still good, but really, doesn't seem to be that relevant these days. Blame it on the Steam, 'got it off the seam, blame it on the phone, 'got it off the zone... (had to make that reference  )

GameStop still does good business. Not all games can be digitally downloaded. Consoles themselves of course cannot, and neither can accessories. And nerds being nerds, people like to go to release parties. Or go to the store to physically browse, unsure when they go in what they might walk out with.

GameStop is somewhat special in the retail world, though, since it is pretty much the only game in town for what it does. There is no other major chain dedicated exclusively to selling video games, only mom & pop stores, and the Best Buys of the world which sell games but not with a large selection. If GameStop and EB Games had not merged a while back, it is likely that one of them would be falling apart and going bust at this point.


It is amazing just how many GameStop locations there are, though. Seems like they have more stores than they really need. There are two in Stamford (CT) that are less than a mile away from each other. One of them was an EB Games prior to the merger but 10 years later they're both still there. Seems like one of them should get axed.

[ajlynch91]

The same is true of GameStop in Downer's Grove. There's one within sight of another on either side of the intersection of Lemont Rd and 75th St. I'm not shocked that they're still around or making decent business, but that they haven't needed to consolidate any of their stores or really change their business model over the years, other than adding downloadable games to their website. Not that I'd buy stock in them anytime soon. It's my opinion that the console video game market is going to burst eventually, given smartphone gaming and how 90% of games nowadays are shooters or sports, eventually people are going to get sick of the same old BS.

[OCGuy81]

I'd say that the businesses I'm most surprised about are:

   
• Kmart: Seems like the Big K is only really trying to make its' stores look a bit snazzier (with the new logo/slight sign changes), but by ignoring everything else. This must be Kmart's "Glided Age", really. Speaking of outdated products, I once saw a pack of batteries that expired in 2011 at the checkout line when I visited my Manassas, VA Kmart (now closed) in January 2013. Just hire a new CEO, goshdarnit!
• Don Pablo's: Don't eat there, but my town's restaurant iis really still around in 2015.

To a lesser extent...

   
• GameStop: It's still good, but really, doesn't seem to be that relevant these days. Blame it on the Steam, 'got it off the seam, blame it on the phone, 'got it off the zone... (had to make that reference  )
• Shoppers (D.C./Baltimore grocery chain): Out of all the chains, Shoppers has to be the weakest competitor in the D.C. area. The last "new" store opened in late 2007 (the Mondawmin Mall location); but it technically would have to be the Ellicott City, MD one which opened in 2011 and closed a few months ago. Also, I'd say the inside of the latest store version looks bland as heck. The only real redeeming quality would have to be the few stores that haven't remodeled yet, and those Donuts. Mmm...

Speaking of grocery chains, Albertson's seems to struggle, at least the ones near me.  They're never very crowded, and I think most go to Vons or Ralphs. Not sure how they're holding up in other areas, though I want to say they went through a BK not too long ago.

[thenetwork]

I'd say that the businesses I'm most surprised about are:

   
• Kmart: Seems like the Big K is only really trying to make its' stores look a bit snazzier (with the new logo/slight sign changes), but by ignoring everything else. This must be Kmart's "Glided Age", really. Speaking of outdated products, I once saw a pack of batteries that expired in 2011 at the checkout line when I visited my Manassas, VA Kmart (now closed) in January 2013. Just hire a new CEO, goshdarnit!
• Don Pablo's: Don't eat there, but my town's restaurant iis really still around in 2015.

To a lesser extent...

   
• GameStop: It's still good, but really, doesn't seem to be that relevant these days. Blame it on the Steam, 'got it off the seam, blame it on the phone, 'got it off the zone... (had to make that reference  )
• Shoppers (D.C./Baltimore grocery chain): Out of all the chains, Shoppers has to be the weakest competitor in the D.C. area. The last "new" store opened in late 2007 (the Mondawmin Mall location); but it technically would have to be the Ellicott City, MD one which opened in 2011 and closed a few months ago. Also, I'd say the inside of the latest store version looks bland as heck. The only real redeeming quality would have to be the few stores that haven't remodeled yet, and those Donuts. Mmm...

Speaking of grocery chains, Albertson's seems to struggle, at least the ones near me.  They're never very crowded, and I think most go to Vons or Ralphs. Not sure how they're holding up in other areas, though I want to say they went through a BK not too long ago.

Albertson's recently bought out many of the Safeways in the Western US.  I had heard the Safeways were to be converted over to the Albertson's namesake back in November, but that has yet to happen.

In my neck of the woods, Safeway was/is overpriced and the employees were/are the laziest, most rude people I have come across in a grocery store (next to the WalMart Supercenters).  City Market (Kroger), Albertson's and Wally World will be the Big 3 in my area after Safeway gets converted.   

[roadman65]

Albertsons?  I thought they went under?  In Florida they closed all the Orlando stores and the rest got bought out by Publix.  They were in trouble, or at least they wanted us to think it.

If they still are around then Orlando shoppers should be pissed.  Here we thought that we lost a good thing and that thing is still being kept alive someplace else.  In fact it makes me mad that they want to buy out Safeway, but they do not want to start over in our area.

[jeffandnicole]

GameStop: It's still good, but really, doesn't seem to be that relevant these days. Blame it on the Steam, 'got it off the seam, blame it on the phone, 'got it off the zone... (had to make that reference  )

GameStop still does good business. Not all games can be digitally downloaded. Consoles themselves of course cannot, and neither can accessories. And nerds being nerds, people like to go to release parties. Or go to the store to physically browse, unsure when they go in what they might walk out with.

GameStop is somewhat special in the retail world, though, since it is pretty much the only game in town for what it does. There is no other major chain dedicated exclusively to selling video games, only mom & pop stores, and the Best Buys of the world which sell games but not with a large selection. If GameStop and EB Games had not merged a while back, it is likely that one of them would be falling apart and going bust at this point.


It is amazing just how many GameStop locations there are, though. Seems like they have more stores than they really need. There are two in Stamford (CT) that are less than a mile away from each other. One of them was an EB Games prior to the merger but 10 years later they're both still there. Seems like one of them should get axed.

If there's ever a question about a company, take a look at their stock.  And in Gamestop's case, it's not doing too bad.  If you bought in 2012 and held thru 2013, you did wonderful.  2014 wasn't great, but still not down as far as it was in 2011.

[hm insulators]

K-Mart. The shelves at my local store are half empty, the flooring cracked, the ceiling leaking - and yet they still remain in business.

I wasn't even aware the chain was still in business until I recently drove by one in Anaheim.

I thought they went bankrupt some years ago, but looks like they re-emerged only to be on life support, from what it sounds like.

They're circling the drain, if my last visit to a K-Mart was any indication: I was at a classic-car show in a mall parking lot, and the K-mart was maybe a hundred feet from the cars. I had to use the restroom and went into K-mart for that purpose, and even with the car show right outside, the place was empty of customers and employees--you could've gone berserk with a machine gun and not hit anybody. The floor was grungy, the merchandise looked tired, it was just not a pleasant place to be in at all.

[Pete from Boston]

Kmart employees look and act miserable and resigned.  This is also how I feel when shopping there.

[Thing 342]

The same is true of GameStop in Downer's Grove. There's one within sight of another on either side of the intersection of Lemont Rd and 75th St. I'm not shocked that they're still around or making decent business, but that they haven't needed to consolidate any of their stores or really change their business model over the years, other than adding downloadable games to their website. Not that I'd buy stock in them anytime soon. It's my opinion that the console video game market is going to burst eventually, given smartphone gaming and how 90% of games nowadays are shooters or sports, eventually people are going to get sick of the same old BS.

Indeed, my area is completely saturated with GameStops, with ten on the Peninsula alone.  Patrick Henry Mall (not a particularly large mall, only 130 shops) has two individual stores, one a former EB Games that never was consolidated. This leads to a situation where you have four stores within a two mile radius of each other.
Even worse, Peninsula Town Center (a redevelopment of the old Coliseum Mall) inexplicably has three (!!!) stores, all opened after 2010. They seem to be doing good business, however, with another planned to go into a new development in Newport News.

[Roadrunner75]

K-Mart. The shelves at my local store are half empty, the flooring cracked, the ceiling leaking - and yet they still remain in business.

I wasn't even aware the chain was still in business until I recently drove by one in Anaheim.

I thought they went bankrupt some years ago, but looks like they re-emerged only to be on life support, from what it sounds like.

They're circling the drain, if my last visit to a K-Mart was any indication: I was at a classic-car show in a mall parking lot, and the K-mart was maybe a hundred feet from the cars. I had to use the restroom and went into K-mart for that purpose, and even with the car show right outside, the place was empty of customers and employees--you could've gone berserk with a machine gun and not hit anybody. The floor was grungy, the merchandise looked tired, it was just not a pleasant place to be in at all.

Like Radio Shack, I don't know how KMart has hung on this long for years now.  Some of the descriptions here were typical of KMart even 25+ years ago.  I remember my mother talking about a KMart in the Cherry Hill, NJ area near an office park where she worked in the mid 80s.  The KMart was convenient to the office park, so a number of people, including her, would run over there during their lunch break.  They would have one lane open with a huge line.  This of course soon deterred what could have been a good customer base from continuing to shop there.  I've seen the same pattern since that time.  Nothing has changed and no lessons have been learned.

[DeaconG]

Albertsons?  I thought they went under?  In Florida they closed all the Orlando stores and the rest got bought out by Publix.  They were in trouble, or at least they wanted us to think it.

If they still are around then Orlando shoppers should be pissed.  Here we thought that we lost a good thing and that thing is still being kept alive someplace else.  In fact it makes me mad that they want to buy out Safeway, but they do not want to start over in our area.

Not only that, they bought the ACME chain up in the Northeast; the last time I went home to Philly in 2008 I went to the local store to shop there and all of the badges the employees were wearing said ACME and in smaller letters "An Albertson's Company".  And I'm sitting here going "wait, they got nuked by Publix in Florida and they nuked ACME here? What?"

[Pete from Boston]

I read a good article that proposed what would require a Steve-Jobs-like turnaround job that proposed that Radio Shack do a massive sales analysis, drastically shrink, and almost start from scratch to target the right stores with today's versions of the DiY technology that made it big back when.  Nanobots, tiny computers, sensors, DNA test kits–basically the parts list from a Make magazine.

I think it's a great idea, and one almost completely beyond the capability of almost any turnaround artist to pull off.

[Pete from Boston]

Albertsons?  I thought they went under?  In Florida they closed all the Orlando stores and the rest got bought out by Publix.  They were in trouble, or at least they wanted us to think it.

If they still are around then Orlando shoppers should be pissed.  Here we thought that we lost a good thing and that thing is still being kept alive someplace else.  In fact it makes me mad that they want to buy out Safeway, but they do not want to start over in our area.

Not only that, they bought the ACME chain up in the Northeast; the last time I went home to Philly in 2008 I went to the local store to shop there and all of the badges the employees were wearing said ACME and in smaller letters "An Albertson's Company".  And I'm sitting here going "wait, they got nuked by Publix in Florida and they nuked ACME here? What?"

SuperValu, the company that owns Albertson's, owns Shaw's/Star in New England.  Under this leadership, Shaw's has left Connecticut entirely, pulled back in Maine, and has even closed stores in Boston.

They keep revamping store appearances, but I think they're just getting hammered by Market Basket, ShopRite, and Hannaford's, the first two of which are considerably cheaper and the last of which has many more new stores.

I don't think it's any worse than Stop & Shop, which is kind of its equally moribund sibling in the market, but its competition fights harder for a slice of a pie being further shrunken by Target and Walmart. 

[The Nature Boy]

When I lived in New Hampshire, I had the choice between Shaw's, Price Chopper and Hannaford. I usually shopped at the latter two and for some reason was never a big Shaw's guy. I wouldn't be surprised if Shaw's is entirely out of business within 5 years.

[kkt]

I read a good article that proposed what would require a Steve-Jobs-like turnaround job that proposed that Radio Shack do a massive sales analysis, drastically shrink, and almost start from scratch to target the right stores with today's versions of the DiY technology that made it big back when.  Nanobots, tiny computers, sensors, DNA test kits–basically the parts list from a Make magazine.

I think it's a great idea, and one almost completely beyond the capability of almost any turnaround artist to pull off.

Yeah, but Radio Shack's reputation is for bad cell phone deals and off-brand batteries.  Even if they used Radio Shack's remaining capital and some of their storefronts, starting a new brand would be a necessary first step.

[OCGuy81]

Albertsons?  I thought they went under?  In Florida they closed all the Orlando stores and the rest got bought out by Publix.  They were in trouble, or at least they wanted us to think it.

If they still are around then Orlando shoppers should be pissed.  Here we thought that we lost a good thing and that thing is still being kept alive someplace else.  In fact it makes me mad that they want to buy out Safeway, but they do not want to start over in our area.

Not only that, they bought the ACME chain up in the Northeast; the last time I went home to Philly in 2008 I went to the local store to shop there and all of the badges the employees were wearing said ACME and in smaller letters "An Albertson's Company".  And I'm sitting here going "wait, they got nuked by Publix in Florida and they nuked ACME here? What?"

There was actually a chain called ACME?  Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but I always associated Acme with the place Wile E. Coyote got his faulty products from. LOL!

[Pete from Boston]

Albertsons?  I thought they went under?  In Florida they closed all the Orlando stores and the rest got bought out by Publix.  They were in trouble, or at least they wanted us to think it.

If they still are around then Orlando shoppers should be pissed.  Here we thought that we lost a good thing and that thing is still being kept alive someplace else.  In fact it makes me mad that they want to buy out Safeway, but they do not want to start over in our area.

Not only that, they bought the ACME chain up in the Northeast; the last time I went home to Philly in 2008 I went to the local store to shop there and all of the badges the employees were wearing said ACME and in smaller letters "An Albertson's Company".  And I'm sitting here going "wait, they got nuked by Publix in Florida and they nuked ACME here? What?"

There was actually a chain called ACME?  Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but I always associated Acme with the place Wile E. Coyote got his faulty products from. LOL!

There still is: http://www.acmemarkets.com

There are a gazillion companies called "Acme."  It's so stereotypical and boastful a name that I'm sure that's why it was chosen.  It's like "Peerless," "A-1," etc.

[1995hoo]

In terms of businesses you're surprised are still around....

I was just listening to the radio and the business report mentioned AOL and said they still have 2.2 million dial-up subscribers. I am not surprised there are still people who have dial-up Internet, especially people in rural locations who may not have much choice. I am kind of surprised AOL still has that much of a customer base, though.

[J N Winkler]

There was actually a chain called ACME?  Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but I always associated Acme with the place Wile E. Coyote got his faulty products from. LOL!

Doesn't Wile E. Coyote have a LinkedIn page that identifies him as "Chief product tester at Acme Enterprises"?  ISTR he uses Ajax when he needs something that really works.

There are a gazillion companies called "Acme."  It's so stereotypical and boastful a name that I'm sure that's why it was chosen.  It's like "Peerless," "A-1," etc.

Ace.

[OCGuy81]

In terms of businesses you're surprised are still around....

I was just listening to the radio and the business report mentioned AOL and said they still have 2.2 million dial-up subscribers. I am not surprised there are still people who have dial-up Internet, especially people in rural locations who may not have much choice. I am kind of surprised AOL still has that much of a customer base, though.

Same here.  My parents actually still have their old (circa 1996-97ish) AOL email addresses, though they haven't actually paid for the AOL service in years.

[PHLBOS]

I don't think it's any worse than Stop & Shop, which is kind of its equally moribund sibling in the market

I believe that Stop & Shop, Giant and Martin's are now owned by the same company.  Which explains the same fruit basket logo on the store-brand products in all three stores.

There was actually a chain called ACME?  Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but I always associated Acme with the place Wile E. Coyote got his faulty products from. LOL!

I thought the exact same thing when I first moved to the Greater Philly area circa 1990.

[formulanone]

Ace.

This reminds me: how do ACE Hardware and True Value stores manage to stay in business anywhere but small towns? Granted, if they are close enough to home/work, if you know exactly what you want, and if you don't want to travel 20 more minutes to get a wider variety of choices, I guess they still have a niche.

Not sure why AOL hasn't off-loaded the dial-up customers to local ISPs, maybe because there's few (if any) of those still around. But the AOL media empire has Huffington Post, which continues to generate an ever-increasing metric crap-ton of hits.

[texaskdog]

I wonder about all these bookstore.  I think a lot of B & N traffic are people who want to sit on couches and read like they are at the liberry.  Place is always busy, we just went in to look at bibles since it's the kind of thing it's hard to check out online.