Business's that are becoming obselete

Backs to the wall?

 

Hello Mr Nile!

 

It's Reverend to you son - @datto

(I didn't know that he liked kebabs)

 

I think education delivery. It's already delivered online in many formats but I think the big institutions and academics are still resistant.

 

Kodak..
Oh wait... Haha

Encyclopaedia Britannica is another big one..

 

Friends brother operates a small home based IT business catering for home users and small business doing builds/repairs/upgrades and up until a few years ago was very busy and cash flow was not an issue (flash cars, holidays etc)

Got him to look at my old PC a few weeks ago and he told me that business is dead and now he gets very little home users wanting his services as every now uses tablets and smartphones so no one wants to repair or build new desktop PCs and laptops are usually not worth repairing.

Luckily he is close to retirement so not looking for a new job but told me times were much tuffer but still makes enough to get by until he can start his retirement plans.

 

Travel Agencies.

 

Travel agencies are one of those businesses that are scrambling for life.

Those of us who plan our own travel would think that it is a very quickly dying trade.......but (I have a daughter in the tourism industry) there are still many opportunities in the space.
Eg. Corporate travel still uses travel agents, families still tend to book international (not Bali or NZ) travel through agents.

Still a dying space but s l o w l y.

 

i actually worked for Borders/Angus&Robertson back in the day. That is a dying industry and will only get worse as economies of scale diminish, then margins shrink, retails raise, then the cycle repeats.

However they should have lasted longer if it wasn't for very archaic copyright laws. They should have just gone rouge like uber did and started parallel importing and fought the government on fines.

Transport & logistics with out a doubt is at risk within a decent time frame. Driverless cars are coming and they don't have to be perfect they just have to be better than humans. In controlled spaces such as distribution centres and docks they can install additional infrastructure to further improve them. I have been to extremely large DCs and the amount of people wizzing around is HUGE, and the industry i was working in at the time used largely uniformed box size/weights in big volume it is a prime target for automation.

Longer term i am very interested to see how 3d printed construction goes, while its a bit of a pipe dream at the moment that stuff being built in a small scale is mind blowing. Given a house costs a couple of $100k to build with a large potion of that going to labour the sweet spot for machine purchase isn't that high ...

 

Closer than we think - although I do wonder how it would hold up structurally in adverse conditions


3D printer builds houses in China - video

 

That'll definitely happen sooner rather than later - and it's not so much a death of the industry, but an evolution and reduction in employment numbers. Logistics itself is booming.

There's already quite a number of large distribution sites around in various parts of the world which effectively are 100% automated on the floor. The tech is there, once the costs reduce enough it'll be an easy sell for businesses to wipe massive costs from their wage budgets.

 

I got a graduate position with Southcorp back in the day, and got to tour their warehousing facility in Melbourg somewhere. This was back when they still owned a bunch of whitegoods and appliance companies. They had this MAHOOOSIVE automated warehouse facility - big warehouse with no windows, lots of robots and scanners, and able to operate with only a couple of people. It was empty. It ran for not much more than a year I think, when they changed to a JIT inventory... This was over 15 years ago. I would have thought the same automation would have applied to distribution centres by now...

Cheers,
Inertia.

 

Bit of both- AusPost is finding it tough to compete and to a degree is resistant to change and will not either.

 

Deli's are closing ...or not around as much as before. .always remember as a kid walking past the smelly delis.
See Cyrils in Cambpell street has closed after 60 years trading.
So where do u get those famous cheeses, salamis, caviar , cold meats, hungarian pickles, Napoli tinned tomatoes...oh well.

 

I've found the opposite. Where the big supermarkets are stocking more and more of their own brand at lower prices, leading to less choice as the others die out.

 

The internet is a pretty damn good source of anything like that.

Deli's are something that are dying because people lack time to go there. I'm relatively commitment free compared to most people and I know I don't have the time to be going to multiple places to buy food, if it's not at Coles then I can go without and if can't I'll order it over the internet.

 

The problem with buying over the internet is... Aust post put a card in your letterbox to go pick up your parcel... So you spend time walking (in my case) to the post office.. You then see a big line up of people.. So yiu have to wait over 5 to 10 minutes to get it .
In that time i could of walked to the Deli .

 

These distribution centres will want to have big cahones if they think they can wipe out a workforce and replace it with robots.

The unions won't like it. The unions are still a force to be reckoned.

 

Unions are weak ... What Union is strong anymore in NSW?
I resigned from the Public Service Union.. Waste of money .