JoAnn-"restructuring"

[mbz321]

Is there another issue with Jo-Ann that they do not have as large or as well developed of a private label program as Michael's and Hobby Lobby have? Also my observation is Jo-Ann handles far less seasonal product than the other two, but then handles a lot more fabric. I would think the margin on the fabric is pretty good but it is labor intensive so that is a big factor there, as opposed to the high mark up seasonal junk that does not take labor.

It is in everyone's best interest for this chain to stick around and provide competition to Michael's and Hobby Lobby. If they go away, Michael's becomes a complete monopoly for the business on Sunday. We are running into a situation in far too many retail segments of "only two choices."

Unfortunately this has been going on for years and it probably is going to continue. The need and market for a 'unipurpose' big box store just isn't there, especially multiple chains selling similar merchandise. Circuit City/Linens n Things/Sports Authority, and many others pretty much just left a single national player left in their respective categories. I'm just wondering how long before Office Depot throws in the towel.

[ClownLoach]

Is there another issue with Jo-Ann that they do not have as large or as well developed of a private label program as Michael's and Hobby Lobby have? Also my observation is Jo-Ann handles far less seasonal product than the other two, but then handles a lot more fabric. I would think the margin on the fabric is pretty good but it is labor intensive so that is a big factor there, as opposed to the high mark up seasonal junk that does not take labor.

It is in everyone's best interest for this chain to stick around and provide competition to Michael's and Hobby Lobby. If they go away, Michael's becomes a complete monopoly for the business on Sunday. We are running into a situation in far too many retail segments of "only two choices." And in a lot of cases if it weren't for inept management that situation would have been avoidable.

Michaels has relied on private label too much. Their store is nearly 80% private label, and low quality now. Many big brands are being removed entirely and replaced with their no-name, low quality Chinese made junk. They're hoping the customer will accept a private label if they don't have a choice. I estimate half of Joann is private label.

Where Joann is smart is that they know what brands their customers won't settle for imitations of, like Fiskers scissors and Tacky Glue. They maintain stock on proprietary formulation/product items that are specialties who won't sell to Walmart and other big boxes. If brand and proprietary formulation/product isn't essential then Joann offers a private label version. Most of their fabrics are private label. All their seasonal is private label. I think they have the right idea here.

Joann seems to buy enough seasonal to fill the shelves in the department once. Hobby Lobby puts risers on shelves all over the building and has many times what will actually fit on the aisle. Michaels rents numerous trailers and shoves them full of seasonal goods. So the truth is seasonal goods at these stores are actually very labor intensive. They manually pull in the product, remerchandise and consolidate the aisles, then pack out what they can fit. It's horribly inefficient. Sometimes the box is touched a dozen times before it finally fits on the shelf. So there's something to be said for Joann's strategy to just fill it once and forget it, but I would wager it would look much better if they consolidated as they sold and maybe just took down the displays or backfilled with whatever commodity items they sell until the next holiday.

Right now I would have to bet if there was only one survivor, it would be Hobby Lobby. Michaels is a shadow of itself and if you read their employee Reddit page and look at job postings it is apparently an awful place to work now. They used to be more effective at executing than Joann, but now under hedge fund ownership they are a turnover mill. Joann is the sad example of the chain that finally figured it out once they were out of money, and I'm afraid the fact they can't find a CEO who will take the job after 6 months of vacancy speaks volumes to the internal concerns about their business. Like I said before, Joann needs to find a investor who actually wants to grow the business and is willing to spend what it will take to replace the majority of the store fleet as leases expire, so that they'll get a long term return on their investment. I just wonder if they need to do a prepackaged bankruptcy to get the job done and wipe out all those old stagnant locations that detract from their brand. But then again, the old stagnant stores may also have very low rent. Sounds like a mess at Joann and Michaels.

Frankly, the Hobby Lobby religious antics will end eventually too. They're an old company and didn't always act this way. Remember that they only started closing on Sundays in 2000 when they realized that religious marketing was a unique "edge" that brought in traffic. If the other two big chains go under they will change their tune quickly, reopen Sundays, and become more mainstream as they determine that it's much more profitable.

[veteran+]

"Frankly, the Hobby Lobby religious antics will end eventually too. They're an old company and didn't always act this way. Remember that they only started closing on Sundays in 2000 when they realized that religious marketing was a unique "edge" that brought in traffic. If the other two big chains go under they will change their tune quickly, reopen Sundays, and become more mainstream as they determine that it's much more profitable."

I HOPE SO...................along with Chick F Late and In & Out Chaos!

[ClownLoach]

"Frankly, the Hobby Lobby religious antics will end eventually too. They're an old company and didn't always act this way. Remember that they only started closing on Sundays in 2000 when they realized that religious marketing was a unique "edge" that brought in traffic. If the other two big chains go under they will change their tune quickly, reopen Sundays, and become more mainstream as they determine that it's much more profitable."

I HOPE SO...................along with Chick F Late and In & Out Chaos!

I know plenty of people who worked at In-N-Out with zero religion and didn't have any issues, including an experienced Manager. Their religious involvement is minimal at best at the store level, and nobody is really impacted by what's written on the bottom of a drink cup.

Chick-fil-A was probably more religious than Hobby Lobby and really any other Christian business until their founder died. They heavily funded and donated to religious causes, plus impact all customers by intentionally closing Sunday as they have since their founding. They are definitely moving away from the extremes. I have seen employees in Orange County who wear LGBTQIA flag pins right next to employees with a cross pin. They opened a location in the Los Angeles area several years ago with a operator who they introduced on social media that included a picture of his husband - something that would not have happened before the founder's passing.

Hobby Lobby is entirely rooted in a made up religious marketing program. They basically made up a strategy and started to "get religion" in 2000, starting to close on Sundays. They operate with Financials that would not survive the scrutiny of a publicly traded company and funnel profits to the owner who then uses said profits to pursue religious beliefs, including religious facilities like his Bible museum and others. There are strange ideas such as the manual ordering process which inhibit online sales, although what is amusing is that they spread religious ideas within the store that aren't questioned. "Barcodes are like the mark of the beast so we don't use them." But their automated Oklahoma mega-warehouse uses them extensively of course... All convenient religious marketing that doesn't stand up to simple logical questions. His sons are waiting in the wings to take over when he passes and once they do I am sure they will modernize the company because they don't want to run on a 19th century model in the 21st century... They've already had to modernize some processes anyway just to get costs down and prevent losses... Receipts are now barcoded and scanned to prevent return fraud. The manual orders have moved to iPad ordering.

I actually don't think the Hobby Lobby iPad process is a bad idea, because it forces the employees to learn their departments and merchandise. They have to recover everything, then they basically have the planogram and minimum quantity shown on the iPad. They mark the low or empty items on the screen and they're reordered. The company can figure out discrepancies even without capturing SKUs at the register; if they've sold $1000 worth of Department 21 merchandise each week but need to order $2000 worth to refill the shelves weekly then they must have a shrink problem. It prevents the problem many other retailers have now; items in the wrong place and scanned with the wrong bar code never get reordered because of lazy shelf label scanning ordering.

[veteran+]

I think the religious thing at i&o depends on the location.

If you have bible text on the breakroom info board that's rotated with different passages and bible text at every employee meeting, then I believe that is a bit much (unless of course if they only hire christians?).

[storewanderer]

I think the religious thing at i&o depends on the location.

If you have bible text on the breakroom info board that's rotated with different passages and bible text at every employee meeting, then I believe that is a bit much (unless of course if they only hire christians?).

Definitely depends on the location.

I'd go for a happy medium that allowed the passages ON the info board but not verbally talked about as part of the employee meeting scheduled agenda. Maybe if some employees wanted to stick around after and talk about it, maybe okay, but that sort of is anti-team, pro-clique, so I'm not sure that would be a good idea.

[ClownLoach]

I think the religious thing at i&o depends on the location.

If you have bible text on the breakroom info board that's rotated with different passages and bible text at every employee meeting, then I believe that is a bit much (unless of course if they only hire christians?).

Definitely depends on the location.

I'd go for a happy medium that allowed the passages ON the info board but not verbally talked about as part of the employee meeting scheduled agenda. Maybe if some employees wanted to stick around after and talk about it, maybe okay, but that sort of is anti-team, pro-clique, so I'm not sure that would be a good idea.

Definitely not happening at every location. Can you imagine how that would go down in LA or SF?

I am aware many corporations now as part of D&I programs create what are called ERG's, or Employee Resource Groups that post things in break rooms. These are in non religious publicly traded companies. These frequently are based on race, gender, and yes some do have religious groups as well which might do things like that. Participation is usually voluntary and meetings occur during lunch breaks etc. But you might see that the Christian Faith resource group is having a Bible meeting on the same board as the Pride group meeting announcement. My last company had about ten of them. Usually you don't see participation outside of the corporate headquarters though.

I think this is officially *Off Topic*.

[storewanderer]

I think the religious thing at i&o depends on the location.

If you have bible text on the breakroom info board that's rotated with different passages and bible text at every employee meeting, then I believe that is a bit much (unless of course if they only hire christians?).

Definitely depends on the location.

I'd go for a happy medium that allowed the passages ON the info board but not verbally talked about as part of the employee meeting scheduled agenda. Maybe if some employees wanted to stick around after and talk about it, maybe okay, but that sort of is anti-team, pro-clique, so I'm not sure that would be a good idea.

Definitely not happening at every location. Can you imagine how that would go down in LA or SF?

I am aware many corporations now as part of D&I programs create what are called ERG's, or Employee Resource Groups that post things in break rooms. These are in non religious publicly traded companies. These frequently are based on race, gender, and yes some do have religious groups as well which might do things like that. Participation is usually voluntary and meetings occur during lunch breaks etc. But you might see that the Christian Faith resource group is having a Bible meeting on the same board as the Pride group meeting announcement. My last company had about ten of them. Usually you don't see participation outside of the corporate headquarters though.

I think this is officially *Off Topic*.

Agreed and the average employee just wants to go in, work their shift, and get out. This is the type of stuff that goes on in salaried environments because some people are much more glued to their job in salaried environments/corporate office. In hourly environments in my opinion there is no time for this sort of thing because people are there to be paid to work productively by the hour.

[ClownLoach]

It sounds like there is considerable customer feedback that stores are not being stocked, items not coming in, empty shelves, and skeleton crew staffing. Does not sound good for JoAnn who apparently hasn't had a CEO for almost a year now? I guess no one wants the job? I didn't get a call...

I used to think JoAnn and Michaels should combine (before Michaels went to Apollo ownership). JoAnn has invested deeply in technology, store design, and merchandising but never seemed to have aggressive enough leadership to get over the "hump" of most of the chain remaining in old dumpy boxes. They finally found the right store format just recently and all the new or remodeled stores starting in 2021 are fantastic. Michaels used to have very productive, aggressively managed stores that were packed with product and kept in stock, and their leadership ability and processes combined with the best parts of JoAnn could have created a chain capable of competing with the seemingly unstoppable Hobby Lobby juggernaut. Michaels was always trying to add fabrics but never got the mix right and I think they either stopped now or only a few stores in Salt Lake City still are testing out a full size fabric department. Today under private ownership their stores are slow, stagnant, sell lower quality goods than before and now only have very few employees who look angry and overwhelmed with an all self checkout front end. Unfortunately, today I think this situation is going to turn out similar to the electronics business where HL is like Best Buy and Michaels, JoAnn, and others like ACMoores are like the chains that fell by the wayside (Circuit City, Comp USA, Good Guys etc).

[storewanderer]

It sounds like there is considerable customer feedback that stores are not being stocked, items not coming in, empty shelves, and skeleton crew staffing. Does not sound good for JoAnn who apparently hasn't had a CEO for almost a year now? I guess no one wants the job? I didn't get a call...

I used to think JoAnn and Michaels should combine (before Michaels went to Apollo ownership). JoAnn has invested deeply in technology, store design, and merchandising but never seemed to have aggressive enough leadership to get over the "hump" of most of the chain remaining in old dumpy boxes. They finally found the right store format just recently and all the new or remodeled stores starting in 2021 are fantastic. Michaels used to have very productive, aggressively managed stores that were packed with product and kept in stock, and their leadership ability and processes combined with the best parts of JoAnn could have created a chain capable of competing with the seemingly unstoppable Hobby Lobby juggernaut. Michaels was always trying to add fabrics but never got the mix right and I think they either stopped now or only a few stores in Salt Lake City still are testing out a full size fabric department. Today under private ownership their stores are slow, stagnant, sell lower quality goods than before and now only have very few employees who look angry and overwhelmed with an all self checkout front end. Unfortunately, today I think this situation is going to turn out similar to the electronics business where HL is like Best Buy and Michaels, JoAnn, and others like ACMoores are like the chains that fell by the wayside (Circuit City, Comp USA, Good Guys etc).

Hobby Lobby is the clear leader in the category, for now. Michaels still has the location advantage in my view with more locations in given markets that are more convenient for customers.

My opinion of Jo Ann is negative. Short of relocating hundreds of stores there is no way the chain could fix itself. There is some sort of passive indifference in the chain that has held it back, never used the competitive advantage it had in fabric correctly, and just never seemed to try hard enough.

Look at the 2 Jo Ann Stores in my area: one in Carson City is in the back of a dead mall. This has been a dead mall for like 25 years. The store never has more than 2 customers inside. I have no clue how it stays open. The employees seem bored/half asleep, products look tired/shop worn, it feels like a store that should have closed but nobody bothered to come tell them they were closing. Then the one in Reno- this is an old Kmart Foods building- other anchor tenants are Dollar Tree, Harbor Freight, the worst Grocery Outlet I've ever seen, Savers, and maybe Rent a Center (maybe that closed). This is an extremely unpleasant shopping center in a bad area. This does not feel safe at night, it is not lit properly, and does not have a positive vibe. There are/have been numerous vacant boxes in much better shopping centers within a mile of this location (where you will find Michaels and Hobby Lobby) that Jo Ann could have relocated into over the years but they couldn't be bothered to do that.