[Steve_Seattle]

"Best Buy: over-expansion, famously lousy customer service, Amazon eating lunch."

I went there to buy a computer printer a few months ago, and was not approached by a sales person in the entire 20-30 minutes I was in the store, even though there were two or three in the immediate area, yacking about their evening plans. I made my purchase at Staples.

[GeronL]

I’ll be stopping by Office Depot tonight or tomorrow for an ethernet cable, I wonder if it will be a ghost town?

[Maringa]

Combination of many things - economy, online retail, but one observation that I have had is that the younger generation isn’t as keen to buy/get “things” like we used to...Many people are downsizing, so there is a lot of stuff out there for sale on ebay/craigslist in a down economy...

It’s going to take years to recover, and reach a new plateau (which will be lower than years past)...The new normal....

We are quickly becoming Japan...I was over there last year and noticed that everything except in a few areas...is stuck in the 80’s...Architecture, shopping malls, etc...People are just buying essentials, nothing more...