XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.libertarian, sac.politics   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: failocrats@latimes.com   
      
   On 28 Sep 2021, Bad Biden  posted some   
   news:sivmvd$3ri$105@news.dns-netz.com:   
      
   > Siri Cruise wrote   
   >   
   >> Democrats kill business.   
      
   In the 1980s, a new type of specialty retail chain started to emerge:   
   “category killers.”   
      
   The stores’ powerhouse business model was aimed at giving shoppers access   
   to every different size, style and color of a product imaginable – all in   
   one place and at reduced prices.   
      
   Category killers, which began to dominate entire merchandise categories,   
   opened stores typically under 50,000 square feet – bigger than independent   
   shops but smaller than Walmart superstores – in strip mall centers all   
   over the suburbs. Shoppers embraced these overstuffed emporiums.   
      
   Staples is “a classic ‘category killer,’ like Toys R Us,” Mitt Romney,   
   then Bain & Co.’s managing general partner, said in 1989.   
      
   These companies, along with RadioShack, Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble and   
   others, spread into the 2010s, remaking how Americans shopped and   
   steamrolling right over mom-and-pop stores.   
      
   But the category killer’s time has passed.   
      
   Toys “R” Us, Blockbuster and RadioShack are gone. Staples and Barnes &   
   Noble are still around, but they have struggled and closed hundreds of   
   stores.   
      
   Another category killer fell this week, when Bed Bath & Beyond filed for   
   bankruptcy.   
      
   Once the go-to stop for everything in customers’ homes, Bed Bath & Beyond   
   was brought down by shopping changes, competition and its own missteps.   
   But it was also a retail concept designed for a bygone era.   
      
   “That model was exciting and novel. If you liked that category, it was   
   like a kid walking into the candy store,” said Z. John Zhang, a professor   
   of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “The   
   concept has become passé.”   
      
   How category killers developed   
   During the heyday of the category killer, a period when the game show   
   “Shop ‘til You Drop” was a long-running television series, people wanted   
   to accumulate as many goods as they could, largely unaware of how these   
   products were made or their toll on the environment.   
      
   Buying at enormous volume, retailers could demand lower prices from   
   suppliers and undercut their competitors.   
      
   By focusing on one area of merchandise and becoming a leader in the area,   
   companies bet customers would turn to them whenever they needed, say, new   
   toys for their kids, a DVD player, or bedsheets.   
      
   The combination of global supply chains, cheap container shipping   
   overseas, falling telecommunications costs and computers enabled the   
   category killer concept.   
      
   Companies could suddenly commission manufacturers around the world to   
   create products and monitor supply in real time.   
      
   “What was key in the development of many category killers was the adoption   
   of modern supply chain methods,” said Marc Levinson, an economist and   
   historian, and author of “The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small   
   Business in America.” “It became possible to communicate from an office in   
   New York with a supplier in China.”   
      
   Large companies with the ability to invest in sophisticated technology and   
   software systems gained an advantage over local and regional stores.   
      
   Other factors made possible the rise of category killers, too, such as the   
   expansion of suburbs, which led to bigger stores with larger parking lots   
   than in cities. Customers could stock up on stuff and throw it in the back   
   of their trunks.   
      
   The 1980s also saw a wave of department store bankruptcies, debt-financed   
   takeovers and leveraged buyouts. This meant heavily indebted rivals to   
   category killers weren’t able to invest in technology and supply chain   
   management to keep up.   
      
   “Local and regional merchants were still around in the 1970s and 1980s,   
   and it was easy to kill them off,” Levinson said. “Traditional retailers   
   were swimming in debt.”   
      
   Bed Bath & Beyond was an archetype of the category model for home   
   furnishings.   
      
   Founded in 1971 as Bed ‘n Bath as a small linen and bath store, the   
   company changed its name to Bed Bath & Beyond in 1987 to reflect its   
   expanded merchandise selection and built larger superstores. It stacked   
   linens, towels, pots and pans high to the ceiling, using coupons to draw   
      
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