Is it time to stay open past 9pm? (Millen: live, cost of)

[bryantm3]

what a lot of people are failing to take into account that many of these stores do not "close" at all— the lights are still on, the locations are still staffed and they do all sorts of things at night such as stocking, cleaning etc. for example, look at kroger. the locations that close at 1 AM never turn the lights off— they are still running the entire time.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I always heard about the 24 hour Home Depot, but never went. I think it was either the one on Clairmont or the one on Sidney Marcus.

I went to the one on Sidney Marcus several times late at night.

Once I got into a plumbing project and needed a part and a wrench. It was about 2 am but I was bound and determined to finish, and was glad HD was open.

Another time we were getting ready to head up to the lake and I needed some straps and lumber to secure a load on the trailer.

[NativeJr]

I use to love going to the Sydney Marcus Home Depot at 2:00 am. They stopped staying open 24 hours shortly after 9/11 for security reasons supposedly.

[lorilove]

Originally Posted by erick295

Don't confuse low prices with low margins. They probably make less selling a washing machine than the water lines that go with it. Big ticket items that people comparison shop for are usually sold at or near cost, or even at a loss if there's a sale. It's things like hoses and screws that are marked up as much as 1000%. That number is no joke, when I put my time in at an office retailer we were paying $2 for USB cables and selling them for $30... that's $28 profit... a $1000 computer could net us half that if it was a hot item.

Retail is a funny business, and (like most things) a hell of a lot more complicated than people realize

At midnight, the contractor who is going to buy a box of 1,000 nails or a supply of hoses marked up 1000% is not going to be shopping. It is going to be the home owner who needs the packet of 20 screws costing $5 so even at a BIG markup it is not going to pay the cashier wages and the utilities to keep the place open.

[FlyingFox]

With consumers buying more and more of their products online, the trend for big box stores will likely be fewer hours rather than more.

You may see stores like Best Buy stop paying for inventory and "rent out" space to brands to sell their own products - perhaps even with their own sales people. Brick-and-mortar stores can't compete with their current model. Look what happened to Circuit City, Borders, etc. In the current model they pay for the inventory and staff, you come in to try their product (keep in mind some inventory is damaged or stolen), and then when you decide you like it you buy it off Amazon for less because they aren't paying for space or staff. The internet is killing brick-and-mortar stores. A notable exception is Apple Stores. They don't care where you buy it from because they consider their brick-and-mortar store like advertising. You like the product and decide to buy it online? Great. Apple still gets your money.

[tonygeorgia]

Originally Posted by flyingfox

with consumers buying more and more of their products online, the trend for big box stores will likely be fewer hours rather than more.

You may see stores like best buy stop paying for inventory and "rent out" space to brands to sell their own products - perhaps even with their own sales people. Brick-and-mortar stores can't compete with their current model. Look what happened to circuit city, borders, etc. In the current model they pay for the inventory and staff, you come in to try their product (keep in mind some inventory is damaged or stolen), and then when you decide you like it you buy it off amazon for less because they aren't paying for space or staff. The internet is killing brick-and-mortar stores. A notable exception is apple stores. They don't care where you buy it from because they consider their brick-and-mortar store like advertising. You like the product and decide to buy it online? Great. Apple still gets your money.

+1

[ATLTJL]

I agree with online killing retail. I don't guess that a lot of retaliers would see the advantage in staying open later, but I can see at least one big exception: Home Depot.

I don't know what the data says, but at least anecdotaly, I know that when you are working on a project and realize that you need a tool or material in the middle of a project, you are unlikely to look for it online and wait for it to be shipped to you. You want to be done as soon as possible. Therefore, I would think that it would make sense for at least one Home Depot in Atlanta to stay open late to accomodate that. Maybe not 24 hours, but what about a store that at least stayed open until midnight? Obviously HD used to do this and decided against it, so I'm sure there was a logical reason for that. It could be things that we're not even aware of, like maybe local police departments encourage them not to do this. I would think that during the overnight hours you could operate with a skeleton crew because most people just need that one quick thing that they know, they don't need to be advised. I can certainly appreciate that being open late with a small crew would open the store to a larger possibility of theft.

So there probably isn't that much of a market for what I'm proposing, it's probably just a matter of convenience for me. Since I'm such a big believer in capitalism, I have to capitulate that the free market will take care of this. If there truly is a market for late night hardware sales, I suppose Gary's True Value or Bubba's Ace Hardware would try it out and if it was successful, HD or Lowes would be quick to duplicate.

I wonder if Wal-Mart has had any influence on this. With a lot of late night needs, you probably stand an 80% chance of being able to find what you need, or at least something that will get you by until the next day, at Wal-Mart. So maybe they are already filling the need that I'm talking about. They seem to have a pretty good amount of success with it as most WM stores do keep the 24 hour cycle.

[lorilove]

Many years ago, they were talking about car buying changing where you would not have local dealers but basically regional Ford or GM showroom where you could test drive or touch and feel the cars but you would basically do everything online (or perhaps kiosks at the showroom). To some extent we do that now but there is still some "price" negotiations that go on. That may have more to do with legal contracts they have with the dealership network.

But when I was buying new appliances for my kitchen, I really wished this concept existed. The problem with buying appliances at HD or HH Gregg is rarely do they have all the pieces from the line you are ordering. So you might see a refrig but not the oven etc. I understand they are limited on space. But honestly I could do all my research and pricing on line, I just wanted to go to one Whirlpool or GE etc showroom and see all the pieces together. In the end, I probably hit 5 different Lowes, 5 HD, 5 HH Gregs and 5 Best Buys - drove me crazy! I still orderd on my pieces on line because that place (AJ Madison) had the best website and gave me everything I wanted expect the touch and feel.

[JoeTarheel]

Store hours are set so that the store will be as profitable as possible. If they thought there would be profitability after 10 pm, then they would be open. Home Depot tried the 24 hour think a few years ago when I worked at corporate and we found that the stores just didn't sell enough to justify being open all night.

[Mal93]

Re: remote car buying-- this is how Tesla (maker of the gorgeous, incredibly powerful --and expensive--s sedan electric car) gets around all the convoluted "dealership" rules. They have showrooms in malls where you can see the cars and look at their options. Then you put I down a deposit & they build them on order. The employees are not allowed to up sell you and there's no test drive (they do tours around the country where you can see the cars in action). Rather sad we don't have a showroom here but I'll be checking out the one on 25th in NYC soon.

I heard amazon.com is developing strategic warehouses where you can get things the next day or pay a few more bucks and get it the same day. While it won't help someone needing a valve at 3am, I can see that really diminishing the need for big box electronics stores (for example)have extended hours. I also like stores where you can buy online and have the item ready for pickup at the local store.

Aren't we on the cusp of being able to 3d print whatever we need, anyway?