March 02--Maybe I should have paid closer attention over the weekend when the clerk I'd struggled to find and flag down for help in the outsized but uncrowded Sports Authority, encouraged me to order my kid's shoes online using an aging in-store kiosk.
When the retail outlet you're already in incentivizes buying its merchandise online -- dangling both a considerable discount and free shipping -- it telegraphs that it's eager to shed the overhead that comes with the brick-and-mortar experience you sought out in the first place.
Sports Authority shipped the shoes two days before its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing Wednesday.
The Colorado-based sporting goods chain has 463 stores in 41 states and Puerto Rico, including 35 retail outlets in the Chicago area. It plans to close or sell about 140 stores as well as two distribution centers, including one in Romeoville, over the next three months.
There's been no official announcement of which stores have been marked for closure, pending bankruptcy court approval. But CEO Michael Foss told The Denver Post he expects the reductions to include a complete withdrawal from markets such as Texas and Puerto Rico.
And an online A Realty Partners notice for a bankruptcy auction of 87 Sports Authority sites around the country includes listings for Chicago's Water Tower Place, Northbrook Court, Calumet City and Matteson locations.
Faced with competition from within and without its sector, in the physical world and online, while constrained by $1.1 billion of debt, Sports Authority was caught in an all-too-common trap in what's left of the traditional retail business.
This is where once-proud chains meet their end while others close stores, lay off workers and sell real estate as they teeter on the brink.
Since an expensive leveraged buyout a decade ago, Sports Authority has lacked the wherewithal to compete with rival Dick's Sporting Goods, which shrewdly invested in modernizing stores and keeping pace with fitness trends.
It found its niche encroached upon by not only other sporting goods stores and general retailers but also specialty stores, such as Lululemon Athletica.
More critical were e-tailers such as Amazon, a much envied scourge of efficiency.
Everyone in every business that's been upended in the digital revolution understands the importance of competing in the online realm and that its significance will only grow going forward.
But when a company allows its desperation to cut costs to bleed through in an overzealous shove in that direction, it's a bad sign.
Making customers feel like chumps because they made the effort to come to you for your purported expertise, selection and to see and touch your merchandise is practically a death warrant.
Sports Authority's filing had been expected in certain circles since the chain missed an interest payment on some of its debt due Jan. 15 (and the 30-day grace period that followed). There was some chatter about interest from both Dick's and Modell's Sporting Goods in buying stores.
CEO Foss told the Post that Sports Authority has been hamstrung by the mergers of major retailers on which it was built, each with its own culture, scale, feel and look as well as overlapping markets.
The resulting inefficiency, he said, "hurt us from a sales and profitability point of view," especially now as it struggles to balance e-commerce with traditional sales.
This was readily apparent shopping for shoes Sunday on one of the middle floors of the gigantic warehouselike Sports Authority at LaSalle and Ontario streets that once was home to Sportmart and the flagship store for Morrie Mages before that.
There was a time when shoppers weren't left to measure their own kids' feet or to try to find the right shoes arrayed on the shelves. They didn't have to hunt down the overtaxed salesperson on the other side of the massive building because of the need to go a half-size bigger and a bit wider.
As I walked out of Sports Authority with one pair of shoes under my arm and another ordered online, I could remember when this particular outlet's tremendous size was a point of pride, not a terrible burden.
philrosenthal@tribpub.com
