5 Disappearing American Brands

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[b]J.C. Penney[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=jcp"]JCP[/url]) has been in trouble for some time. Those who still believe in its future as an independent retailer point to the company's ability to get a loan of $2.25 billion from Goldman Sachs and other investors, secured primarily by real estate and leases. That money, optimists claim, will last until CEO Myron Ullman -- who has returned to the top job after Ron Johnson's ouster -- can turn the company around.
Others believe the company cannot come back from the unprecedented sales losses it has suffered in recent years in such a competitive industry. Big-box retailers from [b]Wal-Mart[/b] ([url="https://bedrockformscol.msn.com/Gallery/wmt"]WMT[/url]) to [b]Target[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=tgt"]TGT[/url]) and successful department stores such as [b]Macy's[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=m"]M[/url]) are larger than J.C. Penney and are growing. At the e-commerce level, online retailers like [b]Amazon.com[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=amzn"]AMZN[/url]) and [b]eBay[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=ebay"]EBAY[/url]) are gobbling up market share. Amazon has done damage to retailers much healthier than J.C. Penney.
Even in a less competitive environment, a J.C. Penney comeback could not be sustained. For the year ended Feb. 3, the company reported that comparable store sales dropped 25.2%, revenue fell 24.8% to $12.985 billion and Internet sales were $1.02 billion, a plunge of 33% from the previous year.
While the most recent quarter was considered an improvement with sales down 16.4%, in reality it was nothing more than a brief reprieve. There is absolutely no reason to believe that J.C. Penney's prospects will improve.

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[b]Barnes & Noble's[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=BKS"]BKS[/url]) e-reader was destined to struggle from the start. It was launched in October 2009, roughly two years after Amazon.com's Kindle, which was, and has remained, the market leader. Both products were hit by competition from [b]Apple's[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=aapl"]AAPL[/url]) iPad before the e-reader business even hit its stride. Adoption of tablets is forecast to grow 69.8% in 2013, while e-readers are expected to drop 27%.
The Nook was thrown a lifeline a year ago, when [b]Microsoft[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=msft"]MSFT[/url]) invested $300 million in Barnes & Noble's digital business, but it has been downhill since. Sales at the company's Nook segment, which includes both the e-reader and online books, declined by 26% between the third quarter of 2012 and the third quarter of 2013. (Microsoft publishes MSN Money.)
The Nook's disadvantage may have little to do with its hardware or software and more to do with the size of its online audience. It competes against much larger e-commerce sites that have access to hundreds of millions of new readers. While Amazon has more than 130 million visitors a month, according to Quantcast, Barnes & Noble has just over 6 million visitors.

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[b]Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=mso"]MSO[/url]) has three divisions: publishing, broadcasting and merchandising. In the five years up to the end of 2012, publishing revenue fell from $179.1 million to $122.5 million. Last year, the division lost $62 million, and in the first quarter of this year, publishing revenue dropped from $30.8 million to $24.5 million. The unit lost $990,000 in that period. Because of its troubles, the company tried to sell off smaller magazines. Meanwhile, its Everyday Food stopped publication as a standalone title with the December 2012 issue, and Whole Living was discontinued after the January/February 2013 issue.
The main problem at the company's flagship magazine, Martha Stewart Living, is the precipitous drop in advertising pages, which, according to the Media Industry Newsletter, fell from 1,306 in 2008 to 766 last year. Pages are up to 404 through the first half of 2013, but even if the full year runs at this rate, it is not enough.
The company does have a good opportunity to retrench. Two Omnimedia divisions are doing quite well and could sustain a restructured company. Merchandising had revenue of $11.5 million in the first quarter, and an operating income of $5.7 million. Even the small broadcasting operation made money. The company could move the magazine online, as many other newspapers and magazines have done, to avoid the huge costs of paper, printing and adding new subscribers. But Martha Stewart Living lost its ability to be a standalone magazine long ago.

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[b]LivingSocial[/b], a daily deals website, has trailed [b]Groupon[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=grpn"]GRPN[/url]) since it launched. But this is an industry in which trailing the leading company is a very bad sign. As the financial troubles of Groupon demonstrate, the online daily deal industry started to fall apart not long after it began. Groupon's share price, which reached a high of more than $26 after its initial public offering, was trading as low as $2.60 last year. While the stock is up on improved sales, the company remains unprofitable.
The situation is even worse for LivingSocial. Leading advertising publication AdWeek recently reported that sources would not be surprised if the company "was sold to a larger company or liquidated piece by piece by spring 2014." That is a long way from when [b]Amazon.com[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=AMZN"]AMZN[/url]) confidently invested $175 million in LivingSocial in 2010. The deal soured as the huge e-commerce company wrote down the investment by $169 million in late 2012. More recently, an Amazon SEC filing indicated that LivingSocial lost $50 million in the first quarter of this year, compared to a profit of $156 million in the same period a year ago.
The biggest competitors to both LivingSocial and Groupon are [b]eBay [/b]([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=ebay"]EBAY[/url]), [b]American Express[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=axp"]AXP[/url]) and Amazon's own AmazonLocal service. Each has a huge customer base and significant amounts of data about its customers, which they can use to target deals. LivingSocial does not stand a chance.

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[b] Volvo[/b]

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In the United States, Volvo was never a giant manufacturer with a large number of models or ultra-high-end cachet. As of April, its market share in America had dropped to 0.3%.
The company's models compete directly with mid-luxury offerings from every large automaker in the United States, including giants General Motors and [b]Toyota[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=TM"]TM[/url]). It also faces more direct competition from low-end models by [b]BMW[/b], [b]Mercedes[/b] and [b]Audi[/b]. With all that competition, consumer demand just is not there for Volvo's cars. In the first four months of this year, Volvo sold 19,571 vehicles in the U.S., down 8% -- in an overall market in which sales rose almost 7% to 4,974,000. A mid-market car company without a broad range of sedans, SUVs and light trucks would find it hard to make any progress in the United States. Volvo's model line is too small to allow it any chance.
Volvo's future is in question not just in the U.S. The company's dealerships in China inflated sales numbers to receive cash incentives from the company that never went to customers, according to Brand Channel. In other words, some of Volvo's dealers committed fraud. China has been the Swedish car maker's home since Zhejiang Geely Holding bought it in 2010.

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volvo trucks and mining machinery bane kontaru ga US lo

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JCP is a surprise

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JCP

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[quote name='psycopk' timestamp='1370364040' post='1303821732']
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[b] Volvo[/b]

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In the United States, Volvo was never a giant manufacturer with a large number of models or ultra-high-end cachet. As of April, its market share in America had dropped to 0.3%.
The company's models compete directly with mid-luxury offerings from every large automaker in the United States, including giants General Motors and [b]Toyota[/b] ([url="http://t.money.msn.com/investing/stock-price?symbol=TM"]TM[/url]). It also faces more direct competition from low-end models by [b]BMW[/b], [b]Mercedes[/b] and [b]Audi[/b]. With all that competition, consumer demand just is not there for Volvo's cars. In the first four months of this year, Volvo sold 19,571 vehicles in the U.S., down 8% -- in an overall market in which sales rose almost 7% to 4,974,000. A mid-market car company without a broad range of sedans, SUVs and light trucks would find it hard to make any progress in the United States. Volvo's model line is too small to allow it any chance.
Volvo's future is in question not just in the U.S. [size=6]The company's dealerships in China inflated sales numbers to receive cash incentives from the company that never went to customers, according to Brand Channel. In other words, some of Volvo's dealers committed fraud. China has been the Swedish car maker's home since Zhejiang Geely Holding bought it in 2010.[/size]
[/quote]

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