Business closures, downsizing, bankruptcies

[temporal1]

2024 / Money is tight, businesses close.

Some reports boast about a great economy many are not experiencing. Not seeing.

This topic is to note closing, downsizing, bankruptices, esp unnerving in businesses one might guess would be thriving
(like recently expanded Walgreens).

RED LOBSTER
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/fo ... 802650007/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/fo ... 949798007/

JCP
https://www.franchiseherald.com/article ... ciency.htm

7-11
https://www.franchiseherald.com/article ... merica.htm

TRUE VALUE
https://www.franchiseherald.com/article ... begins.htm

WALGREENS
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/re ... 683122007/

McD supplier: Connell WA / America's Largest French Fry Producer Closes Facility Amid Fading Demand
Lamb Weston is cutting some 400 employees.
https://www.foodmanufacturing.com/facil ... mer-fading

McDonald’s Largest French Fry Supplier Just Announced a Big Change
https://www.allrecipes.com/mcdonalds-fr ... 24-8726960


^^These are from recent reports. Please add to this informal list.

CRIME is an added factor, crime-is-expensive!
there is pressure to hide the problem of crime that contributes to business failures.

There have been earlier topics. Some businesses have been hit hard with crime:

2023 / “Another business flees”
viewtopic.php?t=5818

[QuietlyListening]

Walgreens and businesses like that are closing because of the internet both for medications, non prescription meds and all the other stuff. Internet has caused many businesses to close- not necessarily bad economy but way folks do their buying.

Restaurants are closing because of poor business practices, again people changed up how they eat and where with covid and maybe not keeping p with trends on how and what people want to eat.

Not fun for the businesses and those affected but not always because of the economy. Sometimes yes, sometimes no and sometimes it is a little of both.

7-Eleven recently said they are closing tons of stores- didn't say it was their old ones as they are building new ones, new look etc everywhere and the old style ones are being closed. So many factors play into it.

[temporal1]

Walgreens and businesses like that are closing because of the internet both for medications, non prescription meds and all the other stuff. Internet has caused many businesses to close- not necessarily bad economy but way folks do their buying.

Restaurants are closing because of poor business practices, again people changed up how they eat and where with covid and maybe not keeping p with trends on how and what people want to eat.

Not fun for the businesses and those affected but not always because of the economy. Sometimes yes, sometimes no and sometimes it is a little of both.

7-Eleven recently said they are closing tons of stores- didn't say it was their old ones as they are building new ones, new look etc everywhere and the old style ones are being closed. So many factors play into it.

Yes, not always the economy.
Increased crime is often linked to poor economies, the problems snowball.

Honestly, crime-as-entertainment, fun+games, continues to jar me.
Those who are not hungry, not going without, looting in groups for the fun of it. A poor use of social media.

That’s a cultural, moral, spiritual failure.

With direct impact on jobs and the economy.

“7-Eleven owners back Prop 36 with $1 million check following wave of robberies”
“Prop 36 aims to increase punishments for some theft and drug possession offenses.”
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/loca ... s/3533206/

[Ken]

Business openings and closures are not something we need to guess about using anecdotal information. The government collects a lot of detailed information on this topic. For example, new business openings (Note: "High propensity" means businesses likely to hire employees as opposed to just shell companies that may not).

A lot of businesses close because they are just horribly managed or make bets that don't play out. That is the case with some restaurant chains. And some just make bad short-term decisions like tossing billions into stock buybacks rather than research and development which is what Boeing has been doing to facilitate its downward slide.



And total employment numbers also paint a better picture of what is happening in the economy



And in any event, if you want to link the business climate to crime, the fact of the matter is that crime has been falling not increasing

[ohio jones]

And in any event, if you want to link the business climate to crime, the fact of the matter is that crime has been falling not increasing

Reported crime has been falling. Reportedly, anyway. There's not a separate category for shoplifting (possibly included in property crime and/or larceny & theft), but it's possible that it rarely gets reported, especially in jurisdictions where enforcement is lacking.

[Ken]

And in any event, if you want to link the business climate to crime, the fact of the matter is that crime has been falling not increasing

Reported crime has been falling. Reportedly, anyway. There's not a separate category for shoplifting (possibly included in property crime and/or larceny & theft), but it's possible that it rarely gets reported, especially in jurisdictions where enforcement is lacking.

All the crime statistics point to significant drops in both violent crime and property crime since the end of the pandemic.

Do you have evidence that unreported crime is increasing? Or, for that matter, that people are less likely to report crime today than in previous years?

We already know that corporate reports of organized shoplifting increases were mostly made up and false: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/07/us-reta ... osses.html

[ohio jones]

We already know that corporate reports of organized shoplifting increases were mostly made up and false: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/07/us-reta ... osses.html

Still, 37% of inventory shrink attributed to theft is pretty significant in low-margin retail operations.

[ken_sylvania]

We already know that corporate reports of organized shoplifting increases were mostly made up and false: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/07/us-reta ... osses.html

Do you have a source for that claim? I ask because the article you linked to doesn't say that.

[mike]

And in any event, if you want to link the business climate to crime, the fact of the matter is that crime has been falling not increasing

Reported crime has been falling. Reportedly, anyway. There's not a separate category for shoplifting (possibly included in property crime and/or larceny & theft), but it's possible that it rarely gets reported, especially in jurisdictions where enforcement is lacking.

All the crime statistics point to significant drops in both violent crime and property crime since the end of the pandemic.

Do you have evidence that unreported crime is increasing? Or, for that matter, that people are less likely to report crime today than in previous years?

We already know that corporate reports of organized shoplifting increases were mostly made up and false: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/07/us-reta ... osses.html

Apparently the FBI has just quietly revised its statistics for 2022, which now show that instead of decreasing by 2.1% when compared to 2021, the rate of violent crime actually jumped by about 4.5%, according to the NY Post.

The apparent stealth edit to the bureau’s statistics, first reported by RealClearInvestigations, shows that the raw number of violent crime incidents — including murders, assaults and rapes — rose to 1,256,671 in 2022 from 1,197,930 in 2021, an increase of 4.9%.

In October of 2023, the FBI put out a press release unveiling its national crime data for 2022, which found that “national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7% in 2022 compared to 2021 estimates.”

Initially, the bureau projected that the violent crime rate relative to the US population had slipped by 2.1% in 2022 compared to 2021.

But the FBI’s adjustment now suggests that the rate of violent crime actually jumped by about 4.5% over the same period.

[Ken]

We already know that corporate reports of organized shoplifting increases were mostly made up and false: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/07/us-reta ... osses.html

Do you have a source for that claim? I ask because the article you linked to doesn't say that.

Maybe "made up" is a little strong. They claim that they had faulty data. But that it one whopping bit of faulty data to claim organized shoplifting accounted for 50% of losses when the actual number was more like 5% and declining. That kind of "data error" would earn you an F in my class and raise suspicions of dry-labbing. Here is source that provides more detail: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/busi ... =url-share

And, in fact, retail theft has fallen nationwide since 2019, not risen.

There have been other recent articles reporting about how chains like Target were blaming shoplifting for their own poor economic performance and sales declines that were probably due more to online shopping and bad locations than theft. In other words, Amazon is more likely causing retail chains like Target to see drops in profits, not shoplifting gangs. Blame shoplifting, not your own poor business decisions is the way to go if you are a retail CEO who wants to keep your annual bonus I guess.

Retail Group Retracts Startling Claim About ‘Organized’ Shoplifting
The National Retail Federation had said that nearly half of the industry’s $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021 was the result of organized theft. It was likely closer to 5 percent, experts say.

Dec. 8, 2023
A national lobbying group has retracted its startling estimate that “organized retail crime” was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, a figure that helped amplify claims that the United States was experiencing a nationwide wave of shoplifting.

The group, the National Retail Federation, edited that claim last week from a widely cited report issued in April, after the trade publication Retail Dive revealed that faulty data had been used to arrive at the inaccurate figure.

The retraction comes as retail chains like Target continue to claim that they are the victims of large shoplifting operations that have cut into profits, forcing them to close stores or inconvenience customers by locking products away.

The claims have been fueled by widely shared videos of a few instances of brazen shoplifters, including images of masked groups smashing windows and grabbing high-end purses and cellphones. But the data show this impression of rampant criminality was a mirage.

In fact, retail theft has been lower this year in most of the country than it was a few years ago, according to police data. Some exceptions, including New York City, exist. But in most major cities, shoplifting incidents have fallen 7 percent since 2019.

Organized retail crime, in which multiple individuals steal products from several stores to later sell on the black market, is a real phenomenon, said Trevor Wagener, the chief economist at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, who has conducted research on retail data. But he said organized groups were likely responsible for just about 5 percent of the store merchandise that disappeared from 2016 to 2020.