Funny how our store mgr. & dept. mgr’s gets on the Theatro to push us to make sales/add on sales as the fulfillment team strolls by wiping out all our better stock for sends. Just saw one cart with 20 MK handbags and another cart with what looked like over 30 of the same YSL fragrance gift sets! Good for the company not so good for the store or commissioned associates I’m guessing.
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Retail sales in the United States were up .3% in the month of November. What happened to sales in Macy's stores. Jeff and Adrian touted improved inventory turns on the Q3 investor call. Inventory management goals without the needed technology and talent resulted in high volume stores with more goods than their teams could effectively manage this year, which will result in post holiday markdowns and margin erosion. In the mid and low volume locations which make the up the majority of stores, as well as the future growth strategy small format (formerly known as Market by Macy's) stores, there simply isn't enough stock. Assortments are broken, brands customers expect in a Macy's are not available while other department stores have wide assortments and deep inventories for their customers this season.
Try visiting a Macy's store in a suburban mall and then visit Dillards, Belks, or Khols. You will see dramatic differences in both assortment and inventory levels. Customers are disappointed and traffic is down across the company, while competitors are picking up market share.
We are not making sales plan for several reasons: the weather, the company owns a tremendous amount of heavy weight coats. It is 60 degrees in Chicago. Our imports are poor quality, very much like Target at twice the price. We are very deficient in higher end gift giving merchandise: Polo, Boss, Lacoste, Coach, and Kors...the product that differentiates us from J C Penny and Kohls. We need to carry a "better assortment" in order to be different from the lower end retailers. Who are we in the market place?!?
Meanwhile in my store no one gave a cr-p about fulfillment, understaffed and overworked with over 400 bops. And the store was packed to the gills.