Buc-ee’s: The Next Big Thing -- July 8, 2020

For the archives, bankruptcies and bailouts due to Covid-19 are tracked here. Yahoo!Finance provides an update at this link.

The big question I have: how "dead" will the shopping mall retail experience be this Christmas? We may very well see a snowball effect between then and now, the snowball being bankruptices.

People joke about ordering from Amazon, but it's no longer a joke. On-line one has Walmart, Target, and Amazon, just to name a few. I routinely send non-perishables to families and friends, which, of course, then becomes a habit and before I know it, I start ordering non-perishables for myself rather than go to the local grocery story. Anyway, I'm rambling.

From the linked Yahoo!Finance article:

Long struggling, debt-laden Ascena retail is reportedly nearing a bankruptcy filing this week and plans to shut 1,200 of its 3,000 stores. The filing would follow years of aggressive, ill-timed acquisition by the company of mall-based apparel brands such as Ann Taylor. With the mall under severe stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ascena’s model has totally fallen apart.

This is what interests me: many of these companies that fail were failing anyway; Covid-19 was simply the final nail in the coffin. So far, with the exception of seeing folks losing their jobs, I'm not particularly "worked-up" about these bankruptcies.

Another one:

GNC has walked through death’s door after knocking on it for years. The 85-year-old vitamin seller filed for bankruptcy in late June after years of battling waning sales and a debt load north of $1 billion. GNC plans to shutter up to 1,200 stores across the U.S. The company operates more than 5,800 stores.

From the linked article, not one company in this list surprises me. What surprises me how long many of these companies lasted. In many cases, Walmart, Target, and Amazon were going to shut them down eventually.

 

I'm curious: does any company listed in that chart above surprise anyone? Several must be regional; I had not even heard of them. Maybe Neiman Marcus is a surprise simply because it's not the kind of store where its customers would migrate to Walmart. LOL. Something tells me that the rich have simply found other places to spend their money. [Later: with regard to Nieman Marcus, I was way wrong. A reader tactfully explained that Nieman Marcus had for years a huge debt risk; leveraged private equity debt -- so much like others -- had nothing to do with customer loyalty.]

Roots has an interesting history; I had completely forgotten about the "negative heels" fad decades ago. I am surprised someone built a franchise based on that fad. 

New business models will come out of the Covid-19 experience. I think Buc-ee’s is an excellent example. It will never get as big as Walmart but it may certainly become a lot bigger than folks can imagine. Buc-ee’s, without question, a company that should partner with Tesla, or GM, or Toyota or Ford. The automobile companies could provide the capital, Buc-ee’s the "know-how." 

Two factoids:

• the average amount of time one spends at Buc-ee’s twenty-eight minutes, 32 seconds.
• the average amount of time one spends recharging an EV: twenty-eight minutes, 32 seconds. 
• coincidence? I think now.
• fake numbers? I think so -- but probably not far off.

By the way, the blog does track "the next big thing."

If Buc-ee’s goes public, I'm all in.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

It will be interesting how the "fast food franchise" comes out of this pandemic. Might we see more outdoor seating -- that would work in the sunbelt, and it would during the traveling season north of the sunbelt.