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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: This summer has sucked, as if that wasn't obvious (Variety article)
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 07-12-2017 12:13 PM
Agreed, Harold.
Recently, my wife and I spent a couple of days in the town I grew up in. We had dinner with the widow of the man who taught me the booth, but then watched a movie at the competition's place, where we hadn't yet visited. It was a little room on a 3rd floor of an old, Victorian building. Seating was on couches, love seats, etc... blackout curtains, pulled by the host at showtime, covered views of the downtown area and nearby bay... electric roll-down screen, and food sales where they attach an old movie-star name to your order and page you when it's ready. Popcorn in bowls they have to run through a dishwasher after the show.
The movie was a documentary... way out of the norm for our movie-going habit.... yet it was one of our best movie experiences in recent memory.
I think the thread here about too much super-hero fantasy is probably on track. Looking over a typical trailer pack at my place, it's almost embarrassing, how many "jump out of the sky", "shoot em up", "drive like an idiot", "swing by a string", "run around in your shorts" and "kick totally improbable ass" trailers have been playing out here... one after another, with scene changes averaging 4 - 6 per second. Earlier in the year, finding a place in that group to put "Beauty and the Beast" wasn't easy!
Granted, we've had a good season with the stuff, so I'm not sure I'm really complaining... yet... but I do sense fatigue coming on. How do you continue to top the last season?
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 07-12-2017 02:42 PM
This is an extreme example (but still really interesting) but even for me here it's great to have access to online ordering for stuff that I would otherwise have to drive a hundred miles to get, or do without.
Amazon Prime does more for northern food security than federal subsidies, say Iqaluit residents
quote:
The consensus in Iqaluit seems to be that everyone with a credit card has an Amazon Prime membership. That's because people can often find groceries cheaper online than in local stores, despite government food subsidy programs.
"Amazon Prime has done more toward elevating the standard of living of my family than any territorial or federal program. Full stop. Period," a local principal, who declined to speak further, said on Facebook.
With an annual fee of about $80, Amazon Prime members can get free and faster shipping.
In 2015, Amazon re-evaluated its shipping to remote locations and dropped many Nunavut communities, but kept Iqaluit. Now, Iqalummiut live in perpetual fear that they will be next to get cut off by Amazon.
"We'd be limping," said Rhoda Cunningham outside the post office in June.
"It would be very, very bad, I don't want to say pandemonium, but maybe something akin to that," said David Marineau-Plante, after picking up his mail.
Food insecurity in Nunavut 'should be considered a national crisis,' expert says
Many in town rely on the service for everything from deodorant to hardware supplies to non-perishable food.
Alookie Itorcheak said she's been using Amazon for four years, to make being a mom more affordable.
A box of 180 Pampers costs about $70 off the shelf in Iqaluit; on Amazon, similar size boxes are around $35.
Diapers are not covered by Nutrition North, the federal program that gives subsidies to northern retailers. It was one of many items dropped from the eligibility list when the government replaced the former Food Mail program with Nutrition North in 2011.
Post office sees spike in orders
Many hold out hope that the sheer number of orders from Iqaluit spared the city from Amazon's first round of service cuts.
Canada Post says the Iqaluit post office is one of the busiest in the country and parcel shipping to the remote office is increasing at two to three times the national average.
Joanna Awa and Paul Crowley outside the post office
In the first five months of 2017, the post office delivered 88,500 parcels.
That's an increase of 27 per cent over last year and averages out to around 12 packages per person in Iqaluit.
While those numbers aren't specific to Amazon orders, Marineau-Plante, peeking behind the post office counter, estimates 80 to 90 per cent of the parcels bear the Amazon logo.
Not a long-term solution
But the president of the society that runs Iqaluit's soup kitchen points out that neither Nutrition North nor Amazon are designed to help those most in need.
Wade Thorhaug, with the Qayuqtuvik Society, said families with bad or no credit can't order online or spend thousands at a time to ship large quantities of food by sealift each summer.
"If there was something that was more targeted towards people who are genuinely food insecure that would have a bigger impact in the community," he said.
Nutrition North is under review after a report published at the end of April showed the program fails to make healthy food affordable.
Feds lay out issues northerners have with Nutrition North in new report
Nutrition North's impact on northerners uncertain, auditor general says
"It's completely unacceptable that so many northerners are still struggling to feed their families," Carolyn Bennett, the minister for Indigenous and northern affairs, said in question period on June 16.
Her department would not comment for this story, nor would Amazon.
Thorhaug says he's "baffled" by how Amazon ships heavy items, like flour, with no markup. He doesn't think relying on it is a long-term solution.
"I think that's wishful thinking, somebody somewhere is looking at the numbers and whether we talk about it or not, it's eating into somebody's profits."
But the mentality persists in the community, that if people don't talk about the deals, perhaps the city can fly under the radar.
"We joke with our friend — she's ordered furniture and appliances from them," Shirley Flack told CBC News outside the Iqaluit post office.
"We keep telling her that's it's going to be her fault when they stop sending us things."
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 07-12-2017 03:12 PM
quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
I used to buy all my underwear at Walmart. Either they did not have the brand I wanted, or when they did, not the size I needed. Then, a few years ago, I discovered that I could point, click and Amazon would have exactly what I wanted on my doorstep 2 days later, and cheaper.
I have just gotten use to the convenience of buying online for almost everything. While I still prefer to buy at Brick & Mortar stores, it has gotten to the point I don't even look anymore, I just go online.
Online merchants just give people another option for people who are not being served by their local stores.
Here at our parts store, we carry wiper blades. We have five lines of Trico, two lines of RainX, Kleenview (a discount brand) and Bosch. Yet I had a guy come in yesterday insisting he needed Goodyear blades, and since we didn't have THAT brand, he said he'd get'em online even though any of the brands we carry would have been equal or better quality than the Goodyear.
In my early days in retail, people would compromise. The wiper blade guy would have said fine, give me the best you have. Nowadays they have less flexibility and, especially, less patience.
There is a great value in being able to get the thing you need right now without even having to wait for "free overnight shipping" to arrive. But people don't care (and don't want to care) about the consequences of online shopping, they just keep doing it because it's easier, fun, and cheaper.
I don't know how we go about educating people about WHY something might cost a little more in a store, and WHY a store can't have all 250 brands and 15 sizes (per brand) of every individual item. It's even a harder task to educate people when THEY DON'T WANT TO KNOW.
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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 07-13-2017 06:32 AM
quote: Bobby Henderson
What's he going to do when he and his fellow online merchants put all those businesses out of business? It's going to be kind of difficult for those customers to buy anything from Amazon when they don't have a damned job.
What are you worried about? Won't everybody just be an Amazon delivery driver delivering to each other?
I definitely get your point. Of course, Amazon seems to be starting to get into brick and mortar locations with their purchase of Whole Foods (pending) and various other concepts.
quote: Harold Hallikainen
On sales tax from online merchants, I just read that Colorado has a new law that's similar to an idea I've had for quite a while. If a retailer sells in Colorado and does not collect Colorado sales tax, they are required to send buyers an annual statement of the amount they purchased without paying sales tax. Consumers can then pay use tax on these purchases. A copy of the statement is also sent to the state.
The problem is that a law like that is unenforceable for the same reason that they can't force collection of the sales tax. If the company doesn't "do business" in the state, they do not have to follow the laws of that state. Shipping things to the state fall under the interstate commerce clause in the constitution.
The only way to solve the problem would be for the federal government to pass a law that collects sales tax on any transaction not subject to collection and then distributes the money back to the state where an item was shipped to.
Back to the topic at hand, the biggest issue is lack of movies people want to see. My wife and I are huge fans of "mainstream" movies. We have never really enjoyed the arty stuff or documentaries with a few exceptions.
During the summer, we used to go to a movie almost weekly. This summer, we have seen 3. They were "Alien: Covenant" (which was seen more as a break from the heat during a weekend at Disney World), Wonder Woman and Baby Driver.
Frankly Baby Driver was not nearly as good as expected. It had some cool car chases but not enough of them. The plot got very convoluted and had many holes in it. Also, the soundtrack had some very strange choices and didn't enhance the movie as much as it should have. It's biggest flaw with respect to box office gross is the title is absolutely terrible. It sounds like it is a cartoon where a baby (with an adult voice) is driving cars.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-13-2017 10:00 AM
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Dunkirk is actually a good movie. 70mm film or not, the movie will tank if it sucks at all. Interstellar was admirable for the hype it put behind 70mm & IMAX, but the movie's cinematography wasn't all that great and the movie had a few painfully bad moments (Murrrfff!!!).
I'm a little nervous about Dunkirk since there is still no Rotten Tomatoes aggregate score on it. The 90%+ scores on movies like Baby Driver, Spiderman: Homecoming and War for the Planet of the Apes were out earlier than this. All too often when reviews are held back until the day before a movie opens the movie itself turns out to be a stinker. Unfortunately not so many Americans are really familiar with the history of Dunkirk. I think the movie may need some great response from critics and good press to convince the average Fast and Furious movie-goer to give Dunkirk a chance.
quote: Lyle Romer
What are you worried about? Won't everybody just be an Amazon delivery driver delivering to each other?
Perhaps for a short time. That is until Jeff Bezos replaces them all with drones and robot cars.
If this process goes full swing America's cities and towns may end up looking more like cold war, Soviet-era Russia. No hustle and bustle, just lots of apartment buildings and warehouses and everything else so freaking drab and uncolorful looking you just want to slit your wrists to add some "warmth" to it. Everyone will be coccooned in their living space and work space with no need to get out of the house. Because getting out of the house will just be a bland, crushing bore.
I like the business centers of cities and towns to have vibrant, neon-encrusted city-scapes. A lot of that is already disappearing in many areas due to very restrictive sign ordinances. Street signs are getting banned completely in some places, leaving businesses only able to use building signs. Good luck seeing those things when you're trying to look through a dense forest worth of landscaping next to the street. Maybe I can find the business with Google Maps! Nah, I'll go back home and buy my shit from Amazon instead. There won't be much need for any "bright lights, big city" flavor in the town and city centers once all the brick and mortar retailers bite the dust.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-15-2017 04:13 PM
I think that 8% figure is old. The figures I've seen have online merchants now accounting for 12% of retail sales. And that percentage is growing. The figure may be much higher when you look at specific market segments, like consumer electronics, popular music and movies.
quote:
Half of brick & mortar retailers are “showrooming”.
I'm not sure I understand that statement. To me "showrooming" is the act of a consumer visiting a brick and mortar retail store to check out something like a new TV set in person and then going home to order it from a different online retailer, sometimes to get the product for a lower price but most often to avoid paying sales tax. For big ticket items sales tax will add a lot to the overall purchase price.
Every major retailer has their own online presence, even dying retailers like Sears. But you're not getting much, if any price break versus buying in the store and you're not getting out of paying sales tax. 40% of all e-commerce sales go through Amazon. More and more states are collecting sales tax from Amazon. But that doesn't stop consumers from buying the product from other online merchants not charging sales tax. Plenty are out there.
quote: James Wyrembelski
Even the restaurant industry is in its own little recession. Mom and pops are doing better, but chain restaurants are in a bit of a pickle.
The big chain restaurants are usually the ones taking up the pad sites around the perimeter of shopping malls or paying the high rents to be in the food courts of indoor shopping malls. When foot traffic is down at the mall it's going to affect the restaurants (and movie theaters) nearby. The mom and pop restaurants are usually in other locations. The good ones will have a more loyal, local following. Plus they're probably not paying nearly as much in rent and other overhead for their lower profile locations.
quote: Frank Cox
In a lot of industries it's that last few percent of the sales that makes up 100% of the profit. So what appears to be a small dip in sales can be catastrophic to the bottom line.
To add another wrinkle to it, many of these retailers, restaurant chains, movie theaters and other brick & mortar businesses are all publicly traded companies. They have a bunch of their life blood leveraged in the stock market. Bean counters have already squeezed many "efficiencies" out of these companies to improve the bottom line and the stock price, leaving little room for error or economic downturn. When one of these companies reports a quarterly drop in sales it can be pretty damned bloody for them in the stock market. When Amazon announced it was buying Whole Foods the Kroger grocery chain's stock took a beating through no fault of its own.
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