Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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J-Man
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Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by J-Man »

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-neim ... SKBN2210CW

They have 42 NM stores, plus two Bergdorf-Goodmans in NYC, and a few dozen Last Call outlets.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by storewanderer »

They opened a Last Call briefly in Sparks perhaps a decade ago. It did not last long. The store was pretty backwards in how it operated. If you paid with a credit card, they actually imprinted the card (took a copy of the whole card) with one of those old plastic sheet type machines. The card networks have since banned that practice.

This seems to be one of those chains, you try to figure out who shops there. Do they sell online? I never see any marketing. I can't tell who their customer is as the stores were routinely quite empty, obviously they ran on a high price/very low volume set-up.

I think this chain has been fading off for years as their customer base got older, retired, and bought fewer clothes. Meanwhile they did not market to reach out to the next segment of customers they needed to try to capture, the middle aged group with higher incomes, to replace those retiring customers.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by SamSpade »

Updates from Maria Halkias and the Dallas Morning News
Closing *all* Last Call outlets and marketing leases for these properties:
  • Neiman Marcus at Walnut Creek, 1275 Broadway Plaza, Walnut Creek, Calif., 87,608 square feet.
  • Neiman Marcus Mazza Gallerie, 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 126,296 square feet.
  • Neiman Marcus Palm Beach, 151 Worth Ave., Palm Beach, Fla., 48,661 square feet.
  • Neiman Marcus Bellevue, Shops at Bravern, 11111 NE 8th Street, Bellevue, Wash., 124,637 square feet.

    https://www.dallasnews.com/business/ret ... anization/

    I've never been to the Bellevue store, but it anchors the entire "Bravern" shopping development, which is in the city center among high rise residential and office uses near I-405.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by Alpha8472 »

I am shocked. The Walnut Creek, California store was only built a few years ago. Walnut Creek is full of million dollar homes and filthy rich people. The downtown has been bustling with rich customers for decades.

The riots hit Walnut Creek very hard. The looters from Oakland and the Central Valley ransacked this rich suburb and left the entire downtown in ruins. People from all over Northern California converged on this rich city and robbed it blind. The city is lucky that the rioters did not burn down the stores as well like they did the Walmart in nearby San Leandro.

I will miss what life was like before in Walnut Creek. It was a safe city where you could walk down the street and feel safe. Now you are afraid of muggers or criminals who ride the trains in from Oakland. People are afraid to go out after dark. The stores still have plywood boarding up the windows. No one shops here anymore. The restaurants are ghost towns. The once vibrant shopping hub of the East Bay is dead. The innocence is gone. Life will never be the same.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by klkla »

Neiman-Marcus just doesn't have the 'wow factor' that they had years ago. Rich people have discovered other options and moved on. I would guess that these specific locations have rental rates that are too high and sales volumes that are too low.

FWIW Walnut Creek will recover. The riots are pretty much over now and life will return to normal.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by rwsandiego »

klkla wrote: July 16th, 2020, 12:36 am Neiman-Marcus just doesn't have the 'wow factor' that they had years ago. Rich people have discovered other options and moved on....
Not to mention they don't cater to the younger generation of rich people who, as you said, have other options.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by Super S »

rwsandiego wrote: July 16th, 2020, 8:33 pm
klkla wrote: July 16th, 2020, 12:36 am Neiman-Marcus just doesn't have the 'wow factor' that they had years ago. Rich people have discovered other options and moved on....
Not to mention they don't cater to the younger generation of rich people who, as you said, have other options.
I have never been to a Neiman-Marcus store. But I will say that perhaps they are suffering the same issue as other department stores, in that the merchandise they carry comes from the same places as much of the merchandise that you can find in places such as Walmart and Target.

A huge problem with department stores is that some items, like clothing, are nearly 100% made in overseas countries, and there is little justification for paying extra for a brand name when the look and feel is the same as offered in a discount store. This is a problem that has plagued Macy's, Nordstrom, JCPenney, and many others. While some department stores might offer better service, they are subject to the same restrictions during a pandemic. If, for example, fitting rooms are closed, what else justifies a high price?

The only way Neiman-Marcus will survive, or any traditional department store for that matter, is to not only place more emphasis on service, but to also actually offer higher quality products. If they can't do that they need to at least offer better prices.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by Alpha8472 »

Neiman Marcus is a very service oriented store. You go there and expect employees to run up and serve you. It is very labor intensive. It is not set up for self serve shopping as other stores. The prices are so high and the quality really is not any better. Most clothing is made overseas. I did like the decor at Neiman Marcus. They have different little branded shops within the store with very beautiful displays and mannequins. I like their crystal butterflies hanging from the ceiling as well as their skylights.
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Re: Neiman Marcus Plans to File for Bankruptcy

Post by buckguy »

I've gone to their stores from time to time mostly out of curiosity or because they were convenient cut throughs (the one at Lenox Square in Atlanta is in the middle of the mall, yet always has parking available nearby.

They do vary from market to market. In Atlanta, the merchandise follows the show-y yet oddly conservative approach that seems to do well there. People need the assurance of "name brands", so the dress department has a big "Chanel" sign even though I assumed that if you could afford something like that you didn't need a sign to find it. They had a Stueben glass gallery when Steuben was still in business but it seemed like the most garish pieces they made. In contrast, the Mazza Gallerie store is very low key---more modern and not as conservative as Lord & Taylor (nearby) but definitely more subtle than Atlanta (no big signs for Chanel or anything else).

The Mazza Gallerie store is a 1950s-style suburban retail district on the DC-Maryland line----the Gallerie is a small mall attached to the store and a Metro stop that has struggled for years. There's another small mall across the street with similar problems--otherwise this has been a pretty successful area over time. There are 3 more or less free standing department stores: Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's, & N-M. I suspect that Bloomingdale's is the only one that will survive. The streetside retail is very upscale (Tiffany) with some off price places mixed-in and a Whole Foods. The area has a lot of medical offices, high end condos and apartments, as well as small businesses like real estate and law offices. The area was on the rise in the 90s and 00s but has lost tenants in the last 10 years. It competes with Bethesda's resurgent downtown a couple miles away, but benefited from the death of White Flint Mall a little further out (although Lord & Taylor still has a store at White Flint). It would be difficult to replace N-M at Mazza, as I don't know who would go in there---Nordstrom is not far away at Montgomery Mall, although it is a more mid-market shopping area and after decades of neglect DC proper really has as much retail as it can support. Boscov would be an interesting addition, but I could see them replacing Sears at Montgomery Mall before going into a high end area like this. The Mazza family owns the mall which makes me think they'd be more willing to deal than a major national landlord.
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