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The Dispatch wrote
3 big retailers discover the World Wide Web
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
BY MARLA MATZER ROSE
Three Columbus-based retailers seem to have realized that this Internet thing is more than a fad.
DSW, Big Lots and the company that’s keeping “The Limited” name alive have all begun selling online within the past four months. The moves come several years after a majority of their chain-store peers starting selling in the virtual world.
The Limited started selling on the Internet in September. Shoe retailer DSW, which opened its first store in 1991, launched its e-commerce site in June. Discounter Big Lots has been outperforming retailers of almost every stripe with its off-price and closeout deals. This week, the retailer rolled out an e-commerce site for the first time, with a “Deal of the Day” feature.
It’s funny to wonder what percentage of the goods sold on the Big Lots site will cost more to ship than the purchase price.
I know that Big Lots! has quite an extensive, advanced Java based (last time I heard) software engineering department.
Good for them. It looks like both DSW and Big Lots gets significant traffic. The DSW site looks really nice and respectful of human visitors. The Big Lots site looks like an inexperienced marketing lead was in the room and said “I want to recreate the in-store experience”, which is to say – it’s a F’n mess. Hope they clean that up because that design is leaving money on the table.
LOL – something going on over there… Wow.
You have to wonder what the return is on developing something like a forklift driving game-vertisment for the Big Lots site. Is there actual utility in this?
Seems like a extraordinary waste of time/energy/effort that will add nothing to the bottom line.
Maybe they are making the jump from JSP to .NET (aspx)… not sure.
I wonder why you have to join. Seems counter to the sensibility of folks who do Internets shoppin’ these days. I ran across that and after 5 microseconds closed the tab and realized I could forever cross off the BigLots! shopping experience from my list of things to do before I died. There is nothing they have that a deal on is worth the time of joining something.
Yeah- WTF on the typepad blog for their product discussions. Seems kinda bush league, but hey- maybe BigLots! is crazy like a fox. Why spend in house development dollars on this if a typepad blog works… but then there is thos stupid games they wasted time on. It doesn’t add up.
You know what would be interesting? Form a squatter community on the product discussion pages. Get everyone to join and see if we can approximate a discussion forum there or some other kind of social network…
Lastly, software projects with legacy systems can be terribly complicated and difficult to port… then add politics, business, and such- it is a wonder anything gets done by anyone. So, no telling what kind of horror show is going on behind the scenes there in terms of being able to write good software.
Seems like a extraordinary waste of time/energy/effort that will add nothing to the bottom line.
Maybe they are making the jump from JSP to .NET (aspx)… not sure.
I wonder why you have to join. Seems counter to the sensibility of folks who do Internets shoppin’ these days. I ran across that and after 5 microseconds closed the tab and realized I could forever cross off the BigLots! shopping experience from my list of things to do before I died. There is nothing they have that a deal on is worth the time of joining something.
Yeah- WTF on the typepad blog for their product discussions. Seems kinda bush league, but hey- maybe BigLots! is crazy like a fox. Why spend in house development dollars on this if a typepad blog works… but then there is thos stupid games they wasted time on. It doesn’t add up.
You know what would be interesting? Form a squatter community on the product discussion pages. Get everyone to join and see if we can approximate a discussion forum there or some other kind of social network…
Lastly, software projects with legacy systems can be terribly complicated and difficult to port… then add politics, business, and such- it is a wonder anything gets done by anyone. So, no telling what kind of horror show is going on behind the scenes there in terms of being able to write good software.
Yeah, I definitely get the legacy piece. Seen enough of that in my day. I’m sure there are 15 competing agendas that resulted in that jsp/ asp hodge podge. The typepad piece… Wow.. why not spring to have the enterprise version hosted on their own domain?? I’ve never seen something that jahnky by such an established company. So strange.
My favorite comment on the drill:
The fact that you have to register to look at products is pretty retro.
I bet their employees still use beepers :-P
no, we don’t. we’ve moved on to cell phones with battery backpacks.
seriously though, this company makes money and during economic times like these the business flourishes, despite the techy critiques that have been posted. customers like a good deal and most could care less how cool the website is.
just sayin’
The interactive 3D store map was pretty cool to play with for a minute. Here is another example of stores that don’t have an inner city presence.
how many 30,000 sq ft. properties are available in the inner city? can you clarify? would LA, Miami, Chicago count?
seriously though, this company makes money and during economic times like these the business flourishes, despite the techy critiques that have been posted. customers like a good deal and most could care less how cool the website is.
Agreed. The stores and sites will make money. I’m sure they are. With regards to the site my point is – if you can’t find something, if the site is unusable (it is in my opinion) then I’m not sure how you can sell something that people can’t find. You won’t sell as much. That doesn’t make business sense to me.
I hope DSW starts putting their handbags and maybe some of their other offerings online too.
seriously though, this company makes money and during economic times like these the business flourishes, despite the techy critiques that have been posted. customers like a good deal and most could care less how cool the website is.
Agreed. The stores and sites will make money. I’m sure they are. With regards to the site my point is – if you can’t find something, if the site is unusable (it is in my opinion) then I’m not sure how you can sell something that people can’t find. You won’t sell as much. That doesn’t make business sense to me.
the site has been up for about a year now and it’s still a work in progress so all i can say is keep an eye on it, it’s really been a boost for sales. also keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to get customers into the stores, as the vast majority of sales are driven from that.
due to the nature of the closeout business it’s not possible to post every deal since some are regional and may not be available in all stores.
how many 30,000 sq ft. properties are available in the inner city? can you clarify? would LA, Miami, Chicago count?
The Medary School is 40,000 sq feet.
Borden Building 52,842 m²
James Cancer Hospital 24,898 m²
Capitol Tower Place (proposed) 88,257 m²
Rhodes Tower 111,483 m²
how many 30,000 sq ft. properties are available in the inner city? can you clarify? would LA, Miami, Chicago count?
The Medary School is 40,000 sq feet.
Borden Building 52,842 m²
James Cancer Hospital 24,898 m²
Capitol Tower Place (proposed) 88,257 m²
Rhodes Tower 111,483 m²
point taken but i’m not sure what you’re looking for. are you saying that just because there are spaces to fit a store in the downtown columbus area (i thought you were speaking about the country as a whole) that one should be placed there regardless of whether or not it would be profitable? every retailer has criteria that has to be met to build a store. if one or all of those criteria aren’t present then it doesn’t happen. they do have a business to run. i don’t think it’s anything personal against inner cities.
how many 30,000 sq ft. properties are available in the inner city? can you clarify? would LA, Miami, Chicago count?
The Medary School is 40,000 sq feet.
Borden Building 52,842 m²
James Cancer Hospital 24,898 m²
Capitol Tower Place (proposed) 88,257 m²
Rhodes Tower 111,483 m²
point taken but i’m not sure what you’re looking for. are you saying that just because there are spaces to fit a store in the downtown columbus area (i thought you were speaking about the country as a whole) that one should be placed there regardless of whether or not it would be profitable? every retailer has criteria that has to be met to build a store. if one or all of those criteria aren’t present then it doesn’t happen. they do have a business to run. i don’t think it’s anything personal against inner cities.
I agree with you.
I think that a lot of stores could build profitable locations in the inner city but in most cases that would mean higher costs in the design/build phase because they would have to abandon their “big box in sea of parking”, or their generic strip mall design motif for a site-specific plan that fits with the neighborhood. I think they see the added costs associated with doing that as outweighing the benefits of having a store in the area.
Also in the inner city there are old industrial sites where they can build a suburban-type center that serves inner city residents. Lennox, the Lowes center off hudson are examples. But again, the cleanup required from it being an old industrial site can add costs that outweigh the benefits of opening a store there to corporations. Anyone seen any movement/talk over about milo-grogan in a while?
from the map it looks like there are 7 Big Lots stores inside the 270 outerbelt. It also looks like they are located in higher density, middle class areas where people would probably shop at big lots. I don’t understand the need for one more big lots within the downtown area when there are already that many nearby.
how many 30,000 sq ft. properties are available in the inner city? can you clarify? would LA, Miami, Chicago count?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) has entered into an agreement to purchase an office building at 33 N. High Street in downtown Columbus. The purchase, which is contingent on the approval of the COTA Board of Trustees and completion of due diligence and analysis, will enable the Authority to relocate administrative and sales functions along with itsdowntown bus operator reporting station into a single, ADA accessible, COTA-owned facility.
“The opportunity to acquire the 33 N. High building provides COTA with a presence near Broad and High streets where much of our service operates, permits our employees to utilize the service we provide to the community and offers us greater visibility and convenience to our customers and the community,†said Bill Lhota, President/CEO.
In 2006, COTA announced its intention to relocate administrative operations from overcrowded space at its McKinley Avenue fixed-route bus and maintenance facility to a strategic location in the central business district. About 100 COTA employees will work in the building which has about 72,000 square feet and several long-term tenants.
“Our new location will also permit COTA to hold Board meetings and other public meetings in our own building with convenient access to public transportation,†Lhota said. COTA would like to commence operations at 33 N. High Street by the 3 rd quarter of 2009.
It’s apples to oranges trying to compare a 30,000 sq ft retail space to a 30,000 sq ft office space. You might as well be asking Big Lots to open a store underwater.