And There Goes Party City

Tweet

As Party City, which shortly followed Big Lots, marks yet another business going out of business, one theme continues to mark at least part of a rationale for the reason why, the big excuse being growing online sales. It may be a contributing factor. But for many of these stores I simply think they missed the mark regarding their purpose. Take Big Lots. A discount store that lacked one big thing. Discounts. When you want to make yourself into a store that supposedly presents value over your competitors, you have to actually deliver on that, and time and time again when I walked into a Big Lots store, I largely walked out empty handed because their prices were not better than say, a Walmart or Dollar Tree store. When it comes to Party City, okay. Fine. You are a one stop shop for all the party needs you might want. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. But, everything is sold at a premium to the same party supplies you could buy pretty much anywhere else even if you couldn't necessarily get it all in one place. If all you do is party supplies, shouldn't you be not only the best place to get them, but also the best price to get them at? I think the big problems are multi-fold. Poor management. Lack of unique offerings in terms of value vs. availability. And also, a misunderstanding that customers will simply go along with your concept regardless of any real value. Way, way down on the bottom of the list is growing online sales. Inflation certainly hasn't helped. Nor have rising wages. It's made it harder for businesses to compete and robbed them of important bottom lines necessary to remain profitable and keep their doors open. It is sad to see any business fail. At the same time, if the companies can't get their models right, it's the only option but to fail.