Lowes closing a few stores

[HeyBub]

"Lowe's Cos Inc is closing 20 of its U.S. locations and eliminating nearly

2,000 jobs, and the home improvement retailer is slashing its store-opening plans to improve profitability."

The stores being closed are located in:

Los Banos, CA Biddeford, ME Old Bridge, NJ Westminster, CA Ellsworth, ME Batavia, NY Denver, CO Ionia, MI N. Kingstown, RI Aurora, IL Rogers, MN Emporia, VA Oswego, IL Claremont, NH S. Tacoma, WA Chalmette, LA Hooksett, NH Brown Deer, WI Haverhill, MA Manchester, NH

[notbob]

The locations are somewhat surprising. Denver, but not my previous location in CA. I would guess slow business is indicative of overall retarded building growth in an area.

nb

[RickH]

"Right sizing" the company to make it nimble. Something GM should have done. Something the banks should have done, Something the financial services companies should have done, Something the insurance companies should have done. Clearing the brush is a good thing.

[hrhofmann]

There are 2 stores about 10 miles from here, Oswego and Aurora IL that are closing. What amazed me was that there were no rumors, and the employeees had no notice whatsoever, they just showed up Monday morning and the stores were closed and the store signs were already removed. What a shock that must have been. The Chicago tv news said that employeees would get 2 months salary and benefits.

[George]

Why would any business do that under our "capitalist" system? It absolutely makes no sense to be prudent when there is only upside and no downside. If you are a bank and you over expand and make bad decisions and run the bank onto the rocks you just call up the government and say "poor widdle me..." If you are a brokerage and make bad decisions and have huge gambling losses you call up the government and say "poor widdle me..." And you even get to keep your $10 million bonus(and get a bigger one next year) for the great work you did.

Rush Limbagh capitalism with only upside is sure a great thing...

[George]

That seems to be the standard drill with big box organizations. That way none of the "associates" have an opportunity to damage stuff etc.

[Steven L.]

Rush Limbaugh and other hard-right conservatives were very much opposed to those bailouts. They said let the banks fail.

If you remember the Congressional debate over the TARP bailouts of the banks, the only ones opposed to TARP were hard-right Republicans and hard-Left Democrats.

Who was in favor of those bailouts: A coalition of "centrist" Republicans like McCain and "centrist" Democrats like Harry Reid.

-- Steven L.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

No sell-off of the stock? When our local HD closed earlier this year (open for only 3 or 4 years), there was a "Store Closing" sale that lasted a month or so.

Perce

[HeyBub]

Still, the TARP money has been (mostly) paid back ($169 billion of $245 billion).

The "Stimulus" money is gone with the wind.

[George]

The angst was mostly about gm since that was an obvious windfall for the unions. Maybe you forgot the "too big to fail" spin campaign that told us that all upside and no downside was a good thing for banks?

[aemeijers]

Cheaper to put it back in the system, at least the unbroken pallet items.

Liquidation companies have a very low RoR on current-stock items, and it is hard on the public image. Better to just vanish- people forget quickly. For the open-stock or shelf-worn items, they probably have a company on contract that pays a set rate with no muss, no fuss. In the olden days, BigLots used to get a lot of their stock that way, I think. Back before they switched to purpose-built Chinese discount crap. I haven't seen any secondary market stuff in their stores in ages that looked like it had made it to retail level.

[krw]

Likely true, except for the fading shadow of the former sign on the building. The former Lowes store here (it move a couple of miles to be closer to the HomeDespot ;-) still looks like a Lowes, even though it was recently taken over by TSC.

They probably shove them back to (up?) their suppliers, like WallyWorld.

[krw]

Um, they do sell Formica. Of course they contract out granite, if that floats your boat. It's not sold in the store.

[Robert Green]

When the Circuit City stores closed I found out how dreadfully stupid people can be. They were selling floor models, returns and other crap for very close to what you could buy it for somewhere else with no warranty and no recourse if it didn't work. Just put out a closeout sign up and people swarm like moths. After all the good stuff was gone, the liquidators brought in truckloads of super cheap crap that sold like hotcakes, too. No wonder this nation's in trouble.

-- Bobby G.

[HeyBub]

All but one of the stores are in a state Obama carried. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[notbob]

....but you jes couldn't stand to miss an opportunity to denigrate the party you oppose.

Typical.

nb

[HeyBub]

What denigration? The statement didn't say Obama was the cause of a state's problems. If anything the statement can be read that the problems in a state were the cause of Obama's election!

[HeyBub]

Conversely, they may all be booming to accommodate those who are DIYing rather than hiring contractors or dumping their dump and buying a new home.

It used to be said that in tough times the two businesses that do well are religious bookstores and shoe repair. The former for hope and the latter because it's too expensive to change.