Miscellaneous Notes; Nothing About The Bakken -- October 29, 2017

Tanger Outlets, Ft Worth

Wow, this is cool. Today on the way home, just past Texas Motor Speedway, from Denton where our older granddaughter had participated in a water polo tournament, we passed a) a burning car; and, b) a sign that said said Tanger Outlets were open. I didn't know it was such a big deal but over on Google Finance  it was one of the top ten national stories. Here's a link to the story:

The long-awaited Tanger Outlets Fort Worth is scheduled to open Friday morning on the city’s far northern edge, just south of Texas Motor Speedway. The outlet mall features more than 70 stores representing some of the best-known brands of shoes, shirts, children’s clothing, jewelry, makeup and many other retail items.

There are stores specializing in Nike footwear, Fossil watches, Michael Kors handbags and Cole Haan shoes. There’s also a Gap Factory Store, a GUESS Factory Store, an H&M, a Levi’s Outlet — and, for furniture aficionados, a Restoration Hardware Outlet.

I'm not interested in any of them. Outlet stores are over-rated. One can get a better deal with the same "celebrity" articles at Marshall's. We were just at Marshall's yesterday and could have bought a Michael Kors purse -- retail, $349, for $79. At $79, it was still about $39 too expensive.

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Robots: Take Inventory

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article181146876.html#storylink=cpyI'm not

I haven't seen them in awhile, so maybe things have changed. But I remember, in the "old days," that once a year, a group of six to ten people with hand-held bar scanners would descend on a store (retail, grocery, pharmacy) and take inventory of everything on the shelves, for tax purposes. I don't know if that's still required; seems fairly archaic. But if it is still being done, it looks like Walmart might be trying out something new.

Robots will soon help stock shelves at about 50 Walmart stores.

The two-foot tall robots are fitted with cameras to scan aisles and check stock, identifying missing, misplaced, mislabeled and mispriced items. The robots will give that information to employees who will fix the issues.

This obviously would work for taking inventory.

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Where's Bill Ackman When You Really Need Him?

From KDVR:

A pyramid scheme that lands employees in “financial ruin” – those are the serious allegations in a lawsuit filed against LuLaRoe, a clothing company staffed with 80,000 distributors.

The California-based company amassed over $1 billion in sales in 2016 and recruits many employees that happen to be millennial mothers.

The company said its sales from January through October of this year have surpassed $2 billion.

The company was founded in 2012 and is known for the brightly colored leggings that many sellers splash across Facebook pages, looking to entice buyers and make a profit – or at least break even – from their initial investment to get started as a distributor.