Downtown Minneapolis Retail News

Downtown - North Loop - Mill District - Elliot Park - Loring Park
David Greene
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby David Greene » December 6th, 2013, 12:14 pm

I only buy online as a last resort. I use Amazon to get reviews on a product and then see if I can find it locally.

The fact that Amazon doesn't collect sales tax means our transit system, among other things, is losing money it should be getting. I have paid use taxes in the past but I don't know if those go to the state exclusively or if they're divided up amongst the local jurisdictions.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby FISHMANPET » December 6th, 2013, 12:20 pm

Well NewEgg ran an entire advertising campagin about going to Best Buy to look at products and then buying them on Newegg.

In my high school days I worked at Best Buy one Christmas selling printers and printer ink, and I had at least one couple come in ask for me for help finding the right printer cartridge for their printer and once I found it they said they'd go buy it at Wal-Mart, so it's not exactly an online vs B&M problem.

Also not sure how you can combat that. The point of the B&M store should be to create value for the consumer, and some consumers will recognize that and reward it (like in that article I posted earlier about bookstores) but there will always be people that will just try and nickel and dime everybody to save as many absolute dollars as possible.

Back to Best Buy, I bought my wife a laptop a year or two ago from Best Buy. I could have gotten it at Amazon for a few bucks cheaper but I wanted to play with it in person first and get it right away, so I was willing to get it at Best Buy. The checkout process was so awful I was about ready to tell him nevermind and just order it from Amazon on my phone right there in the store out of spite. We spent 10 minutes signing me up for free anti-virus that I in no uncertain terms wanted. Everytime I think about it, I should have been more of an ass in that situation. I eventually just went along with it, but I really should have demanded to speak to a manager and refused to sign up for the Anti-virus (it required my address or something), and if the manager refused to not give me the anti-virus, I should have ordered it on Amazon right there.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby FISHMANPET » December 6th, 2013, 12:25 pm

As to sales tax, the fact that online stores don't collect sales tax means we should just abolish the sales tax and get that money somewhere else. It's too much of a bureaucratic nightmare to collect online sales tax and put everybody on a level playing field, I say just get rid of it and find some other way to fund things.

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby twincitizen » December 6th, 2013, 12:31 pm

Totally anecdoctal, but:

I once tried to buy a vacuum at Best Buy, as they had it listed for the same price as Amazon ($130). I had Amazon Prime at the time, and would've gotten free 2-day shipping. I'm definitely a nickel & dimer, but I also share the values that David expressed above, not minding paying local sales taxes that benefit my community. I calculated what the sales tax burden would be (just under $10) and decided to go with Best Buy. I got there and Best Buy's "sale" had ended on the vacuum, now listed at $150, or $20 more than Amazon. Obviously Amazon won that purchase.

FMP: Is it really that much of a burden to calculate local sales tax? I'd think there would be a simple piece of software out there that would track local sales tax rates and provide that product (as a plug-in app or whatever) to businesses. Larger businesses like Amazon, Target (online sales), etc. obviously can afford to keep track of rates on their own. Amazon currently seems to handle this burden just fine in the many locales that make them collect sales tax. Didn't MN pass a law this year to start collecting online sales taxes? Or did that effort somehow fizzle out? I'm pretty positive it even had some Republican support. I did not pay sales tax on a recent Amazon purchase, so it's definitely not in effect yet. If I were to buy something from BestBuy.com (or Target), I'd have to pay sales tax because they are based in MN, so there is unfairness even between online retailers.

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby David Greene » December 6th, 2013, 12:39 pm

As to sales tax, the fact that online stores don't collect sales tax means we should just abolish the sales tax and get that money somewhere else. It's too much of a bureaucratic nightmare to collect online sales tax and put everybody on a level playing field, I say just get rid of it and find some other way to fund things.
Why is it a nightmare? Computer programs exist that handle it just fine. It's the exact kind of problem computers are good at solving.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby FISHMANPET » December 6th, 2013, 12:48 pm

It's not the big retailers that i'm worried about, but the little independent shops, the ones that can only really exist on the internet. I know quite a few local fashion designers that sell a little bit locally but also do online business. They don't really have the time or manpower to do all the legwork themselves to figure out the proper sales tax and then distributing it to any one of thousands of municipalities that collect sales tax in the country.

Maybe there's a market for a sales tax clearinghouse that gets a small percent of the order in exchange for figuring out the correct sales tax based on billing address and properly distributing it.

But how do you verify the correct sales tax? I can easily give different billing and shipping addresses when I order a product (and I do, as I have everything shipped to my office but billed to my home address). So what's to stop me from setting my billing address to someplace in Oregon where there's no sales tax, and my shipping address here?

Should something I order from Europe pay sales tax? Should something ordered here and shipped to Europe pay VAT?

On the surface it seems simple but I think when you dig down and look at all the edge cases you'll find it gets pretty expensive and burdensome on the merchants to collect it.

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mister.shoes
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby mister.shoes » December 6th, 2013, 1:14 pm

So what's to stop me from setting my billing address to someplace in Oregon where there's no sales tax, and my shipping address here?
Your CC is tied, at the very least, to a ZIP code. At least I'm pretty sure it is.
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby Avian » December 6th, 2013, 1:17 pm

Amazon is peculiar. Really peculiar. Since it was founded in 1995, it has not made a profit. Almost 20 years along now and zero. Nothing.

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
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FISHMANPET
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby FISHMANPET » December 6th, 2013, 1:25 pm

Your CC is tied, at the very least, to a ZIP code. At least I'm pretty sure it is.
It usually is. If I had family in Oregon I could set their address as my billing address, or if I was really crazy I could find some guy in Oregon as cheap as me on some forum for cheapskates and we'd all set our billing address as him.

On a more local level I could set my billing address to my mom's place in Zumbrota and avoid Minneapolis sales tax under a scheme where sales tax is charged based on billing address.

So maybe sales tax should be charged based on where a package is delivered to? But if I live in Minneapolis and work in a suburb (I don't currently, but I'm sure it's a pretty common scenario, and one that I might face in the near future) and ship my packages to work, I would still be skirting Minneapolis sales tax.

And what about purchasing something like a video game on steam, where there's no physical product, where should that sales tax go?
Amazon is peculiar. Really peculiar. Since it was founded in 1995, it has not made a profit. Almost 20 years along now and zero. Nothing.
It's because they don't want to. Jeff Bezos has somehow managed to pull the wool over the eyes of a Wall Street obsessed with quarterly profits, and they've let him invest all the money back into the business. They're not losing money, they're just doing with their money what I think most liberals would prefer a business do with their profits, invest it back into the business to create new technology and jobs rather than pay it back to fat cat investors.

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby RailBaronYarr » December 6th, 2013, 1:35 pm

It's because they don't want to. Jeff Bezos has somehow managed to pull the wool over the eyes of a Wall Street obsessed with quarterly profits, and they've let him invest all the money back into the business. They're not losing money, they're just doing with their money what I think most liberals would prefer a business do with their profits, invest it back into the business to create new technology and jobs rather than pay it back to fat cat investors.
Yes. There's lots to question regarding Amazon, but overall I think they're a positive. They're taking down big box retailers, not so much small businesses (in fact, they pioneered well-executed online marketplaces to allow small businesses instant reach to hundreds of millions of buyers). And the re-investing thing is spot on. Not to mention where/how they've built their HQ.

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby Didier » December 6th, 2013, 1:39 pm

The concept of driving to Best Buy to get help locating a printer cartridge and then driving to Wal-Mart to save a marginal amount of money is so ridiculous I don't even know what to say.

Also, I'm pretty sure Best Buy had changed its price matching approach and also re-emphasized customer service, which sound like the two biggest complaints. I can't speak to the results myself, but just pointing that out.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby FISHMANPET » December 6th, 2013, 1:44 pm

Veering another thread way off topic, but I've seen it speculated that the high marginal corporate tax rates in the first three quarters of the 20th century are what allowed things like Bell Labs to exist, without which the tech world would be a vastly different place (they invented quite a bit of Unix).

So yeah back to the topic, the problem with everything is capitalism in its current form.

And I worked at Best Buy for Christmas 2004 so obviously quite a while ago.

I'm probably the wrong kind of customer for Best Buy, where I know what I want and I just want a place to procure what I want, rather than being sold something.

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby mattaudio » December 6th, 2013, 2:49 pm

Amazon and locally-owned independent shops can coexist, they're just squeezing out big box on both ends. And that's fine. Here are two of my favorite futurists, Chuck Marohn and Ian Rasmussen, talking about it:
http://www.strongtowns.org/strong-towns ... prime.html

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Nick
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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby Nick » December 6th, 2013, 4:28 pm

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby MNdible » December 6th, 2013, 6:00 pm

I've actually had very good experiences at Best Buy the last couple of times I've shopped there -- whether or not it saves their skin, I think they've turned the corner in terms of customer experience.

In general, I'm very pessimistic about retailing in general. A lot of people here talk about how Nicollet Mall should have more small storefronts. Who exactly will be renting out these little very expensive storefronts? Artisanal candle makers? Video rental stores? Another Starbucks?

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby Tyler » December 7th, 2013, 11:39 am

In general, I'm very pessimistic about retailing in general. A lot of people here talk about how Nicollet Mall should have more small storefronts. Who exactly will be renting out these little very expensive storefronts? Artisanal candle makers? Video rental stores? Another Starbucks?
This is a weird opinion. Unless "in general" means downtown minnepolis specifically. Because there are plenty of cities with thriving retail areas based on small storefronts. Mostly clothing stores -- but other stuff like furniture shores, housewares, gift shops, etc. Mixed in with restaurants, salons, grocery stores, coffee shops, and banks. This is what makes a city -- and I don't think this model is going away. Rue St Denis in Montreal isn't becoming a ghost town any time soon...
Towns!

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby John » December 7th, 2013, 12:39 pm

Downtown Minneapolis doesn't live up to its potential as far as retail goes. The booming Washington Ave and the North Loop areas should be emerging as a new retail center like the Pearl District in Portland. Nicollet Mall could attract more national retailers if there was a more concerted effort by the landlords and the Downtown Council to promote our city to retailers on a national level. The Ritz Block is ground zero for a new retail center like Westlake Center in Seattle. We need some ambitious developers with vision and guts.

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby web » December 7th, 2013, 4:19 pm

But Portland and Seattle have maybe 1 skyway each. I feel the skyways have destroyed the outdoor people effext of dt mpls. I am in Portland this Sat and there are tons of people downtown and 100s of shops , restaurants and bars. NO skyways and its 20 degrees out!

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby John » December 8th, 2013, 1:34 am

^^^And they don't have that god forsaken Mall Of America to contend with either. But I still think our downtown can do better. I'm hopeful it will.

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Re: Downtown Retail News

Postby Tyler » December 8th, 2013, 10:23 am

What successful North American retail areas are right in the middle to the CBD? I can't think of any. Even San Fransisco and NYC's are dead on weekends. So if we're trying to emulate other cities, we should be looking to turn a nearby area into a retail destination. But no where else has the bones for it, except uptown.
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