The Working Dead

Depending on which 24-hour news channel you check in with, the economy is either rebounding nicely or on the verge of collapsing and ending life as we know it, with no room in between. Without an economics degree I am left to go with what my eyes tell me, which is that things are coming back but when they do return to a healthy level the landscape will look drastically different from what we had pre-collapse. Basically, I think the problems of the last few years have exposed some flawed ideas and no matter how much of a recovery is made there are certain businesses which won't ever return. Whether it is because a lot of people prefer to shop online or the stores based their livelihood on a product which is no longer in-demand, I don't think we will ever see things return to how they used to be. But even though I know all this, I am often still surprised when I learn certain once-major companies are going out of business. You expect the mom-and-pop stores to eventually fold, but the chain stores always seemed so invincible. That even applies to companies which I could have figured out weren't doing well, such as earlier this week when Blockbuster video announced they were closing down their remaining locations (admittedly, most of that shock came from finding out there were still Blockbuster stores). But the bigger new item was when it was revealed that local warehouse store Building #19 was filing for bankruptcy and closing all their locations within a few weeks.

Now, I would love to explain what Building #19 was for all the people who never shopped in one before, but I'm having a hard time coming up with the right word to describe this store. Haphazard? Random? Eclectic? Schizophrenic? Basically, the store existed to sell whatever was left from last year's model plus anything which was refurbished, abnormal, over-run, discolored or otherwise unfit to be sold by a "normal" establishment. Their motto was "Good Stuff Cheap" and while you could argue with the first and third words, there was no better way to encapsulate what they sold better than "Stuff". I tweeted this the other day, but if you needed a couch, out-of-print books, Christmas decorations in July, a framed picture of the 2007 Red Sox and a golf polo from a charity tournament you didn't play in, you could get all that under one roof at Building #19. You could find some interesting deals provided you didn't go in with a specific item in mind. Throughout my life I have bought any number of things from Building #19 from mattresses and couches to video game consoles (our first Nintendo came from Building #19), a few shirts and numerous rugs. (Building #19 was everyone's go-to store for a cheap rug for college because who cares about staining a rug you paid $15 for and which arrived with a stain already on it?) It was the kind of place you would never go to first but always make sure you eventually swung by just in case they had something you would want. If being flexible is the key to staying in business than Building #19 should have lasted forever. Finding out this store will be going out of business is a little like finding out the strange couple down the street is getting divorced after 40 years of marriage. Sure, you can't understand what they saw in each other to begin with but by this point you can't imagine seeing one without the other.

As you would imagine, losing this New England institution is bringing people out of the woodwork. But while there are plenty of people who are using Building #19's bankruptcy as an opportunity to lament how the internet will eventually be the death of the American economy, many more people are simply anxious to see if they can find themselves a really good bargain. After all, there is no place for sentimentality when there is a deal to be had. Driving by my local Building #19 yesterday I was hardly surprised to see the parking lot was packed. The store always seems to have a fair amount of traffic, but this was as solid as I had seen it in a while. And while that part was expected, what caught my ear was that everywhere I turned there were shoppers talking to one another and lamenting the loss of this store. I found their talk rather disingenuous because all they had to do was shop here occasionally and it never would have gotten to this point. Now, don't me wrong I was doing the exact same thing as the rest of these people - I quickly pulled in to see what discounted treasures the store may have pulled from its storage room knowing everything had to be gone in less than a month (sadly, while the selection was just as random as ever, I found nothing) - the difference I wasn't acting like I was saying good-bye to a family member. I have no issue with picking over what is left over from this family-owned business, just don't act like you are doing it out of respect for the store when the reality is you just want to see if you can find a kitchen table for 70% off.

Also, as I was wading through all this humanity I couldn't help but find all this rather ironic. The store is going out of business and yet they are probably going to have one of their best sales months in recent memory. I know most of that money is going to creditors but as often happens when I'm in a packed going-out-of-business sale, it just made me wonder why a store hasn't tried this as a marketing ploy before. Announce you are going out of business, lower the prices on the stuff you really don't need anymore while keeping the prices high on the items you know people will still pay top dollar for (I think by now we can all admit people are willing to buy anything if the price is low enough) and then in a couple of months say you had reached an agreement with creditors to remain open. You've had a good month, cleaned out most of your undesirable inventory, received some good press from all the people who talked about how much they will miss the store and your customers will now feel like they helped save the store from extinction and have a new sense of loyalty out of the fear they could still lose the place. It really would work out well for everyone, provided the customers never find out the store wasn't ever planning on actually going out of business. If that happened they would turn on the store a second time and this time the bankruptcy would be for real. Then again, that would result in yet another great month. Plus, think of all the money they would save by already having the "Everything Must Go" signs?