Never trust the corporations excuses.
PS: I wasn’t sure if this was a good fit for this community, but I couldn’t think of another. Any suggestions?
The consequence I can see it happening and being concerning. The investors thingy I don’t think it’s sound ; as an investor I would be all in for closing underperforming stores. No need to cover it for them they surely don’t give a shit beyond « money would be better invested elsewhere ».
They would have to spend time analyzing why they failed to make sure investors knew they wouldn’t do this again. Cheaper and easier to blame the poors.
Given the amount of analytics and reporting ongoing in retail I have no doubt they have all the info at hand. And they could still directly blame the poor for the poor sales performances and call to invest in better locations. More money from investors and trust is maintained.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in one of these stores but they were terrible. Like if the merchandising was a complete train wreck, it would require multiple people at multiple levels to admit they fucked up. Plenty of retailers in the immediate area are doing just fine, they can’t even blame the location. They just aren’t setup to provide what people need if it isn’t a big box store.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in one of these stores but they were terrible. Like if the merchandising was a complete train wreck, it would require multiple people at multiple levels to admit they fucked up. Plenty of retailers in the immediate area are doing just fine, they can’t even blame the location. They just aren’t setup to provide what people need if it isn’t a big box store.
I would agree on this point, generally businesses lie to the public for political reasons, to gin up political favor for their desired outcomes.
Most rich CEOs are out of touch and think crime just comes from “undesirables” and the only way to fix it is to massively increase police presence. In other words, they’re authoritarians. This has more to do with creating a narrative about crime and intent to get political support for further instituting a police state and taking the required effort for security off the businesses. It’s really about passing the bill for keeping their stores “secure” onto the taxpayer, so they can rely more on local police and on private security less.
The article in question even covers how there are already attempts to write bills targeting this problem at the Federal level. (A bipartisan bill, I might add.)
They are usually pretty honest with their investors. I would expect their investor presentations are a lot more honest, but because that’s “economics news” it usually gets fewer headlines or people reporting on it. It would be interesting to contrast Target’s investor calls compared to what they’re saying publicly. Same with other businesses like Walgreens leaning on the same story.