Macy’s 2020

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: November 24th, 2022, 7:35 pm

My head hurts just reading this... it reminds me of the Service Merchandise days. Not even Summit Racing/DX Engineering is that bad, and their system is pretty awful at that.
I've done pick ups at Macys in past years. Never any hassle like this. No idea what they are doing.
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by architect »

Earlier this week, Macy's announced four additional store closures. I'm honestly surprised that there aren't more, as they still have quite a bit of low-hanging fruit.

- Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 4005 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles, CA (mall is under active redevelopment)
- Foothills Mall, 215 E Foothills Pkwy, Fort Collins, CO (store has been on previous "neighborhood store" lists for some time, and the mall has somewhat of a questionable future despite a revitalization in the 2010's)
- Windward Center, 46-056 Kamehameha Hwy, Kaneohe, HI
- Lakeforest Mall, 701 Russell Ave, Gaithersburg, MD (mall is being demolished and redeveloped starting either later this year or next year)
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by steps »

architect wrote: January 7th, 2023, 7:12 am Earlier this week, Macy's announced four additional store closures. I'm honestly surprised that there aren't more, as they still have quite a bit of low-hanging fruit.

- Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 4005 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles, CA (mall is under active redevelopment)
- Foothills Mall, 215 E Foothills Pkwy, Fort Collins, CO (store has been on previous "neighborhood store" lists for some time, and the mall has somewhat of a questionable future despite a revitalization in the 2010's)
- Windward Center, 46-056 Kamehameha Hwy, Kaneohe, HI
- Lakeforest Mall, 701 Russell Ave, Gaithersburg, MD (mall is being demolished and redeveloped starting either later this year or next year)
Macy's took over Broadway, closed it. They took over May Co there and now closing it. It seems like Macy's took over the competition destroyed them and now destroying themselves.

I wonder what is going to go into those buildings now? The area is a mixed bag of demographics of low to upper-mid. Target would definitely not move into there, Walmart already left and has been empty for awhile. I don't see any chain store that could possibly want to take these locations. It's prime real-estate but shrink would be way too high. The Walmart was successful but the shrink in the store was killing the profit.
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Re: Macy’s 2020

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steps wrote: January 9th, 2023, 5:04 pm

Macy's took over Broadway, closed it. They took over May Co there and now closing it. It seems like Macy's took over the competition destroyed them and now destroying themselves.

I wonder what is going to go into those buildings now? The area is a mixed bag of demographics of low to upper-mid. Target would definitely not move into there, Walmart already left and has been empty for awhile. I don't see any chain store that could possibly want to take these locations. It's prime real-estate but shrink would be way too high. The Walmart was successful but the shrink in the store was killing the profit.
Macy's West played an excellent Monopoly game in CA until Macy's West was dissolved in some restructure ~10 years ago ensuring that there was no way competition that would impact them (basically Dillard's) could get into any of the better malls with them. Sure, they let Dillard's play ball in a few joke locations (Stockton, Palmdale, and El Centro...) probably thinking Dillard's would never sign to those cities with awful reputations yet Dillard's did go there and is still open in all 3. Sometimes they let Gottschalk's go into a building since they knew Gottschalk's wasn't really that much of a threat and didn't have the money to become a serious threat.

And now this is what is faced. Because Macy's dominated the anchor spaces for so long ensuring no legitimate competitors could show up, and now Macy's is in downsizing mode getting rid of redundant stores, closing floors/space in low volume stores, etc. this is really hurting the malls. It is no longer worth going to a mall that has one poor Macy's in it. But it that mall had a Dillard's present in addition to the poor Macy's it would be more of a draw as Dillard's would draw some traffic too. Macy's West played a great Monopoly game over the years but if you are left holding properties that have no foot traffic because your store no longer draws in enough traffic on its own to keep the mall viable, what good is it now?
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by buckguy »

steps wrote: January 9th, 2023, 5:04 pm
architect wrote: January 7th, 2023, 7:12 am Earlier this week, Macy's announced four additional store closures. I'm honestly surprised that there aren't more, as they still have quite a bit of low-hanging fruit.

- Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 4005 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles, CA (mall is under active redevelopment)
- Foothills Mall, 215 E Foothills Pkwy, Fort Collins, CO (store has been on previous "neighborhood store" lists for some time, and the mall has somewhat of a questionable future despite a revitalization in the 2010's)
- Windward Center, 46-056 Kamehameha Hwy, Kaneohe, HI
- Lakeforest Mall, 701 Russell Ave, Gaithersburg, MD (mall is being demolished and redeveloped starting either later this year or next year)
Macy's took over Broadway, closed it. They took over May Co there and now closing it. It seems like Macy's took over the competition destroyed them and now destroying themselves.

I wonder what is going to go into those buildings now? The area is a mixed bag of demographics of low to upper-mid. Target would definitely not move into there, Walmart already left and has been empty for awhile. I don't see any chain store that could possibly want to take these locations. It's prime real-estate but shrink would be way too high. The Walmart was successful but the shrink in the store was killing the profit.
I'm surprised they didn't close Crenshaw or Lakeforest quite awhile ago. The Lakeforest redevelopment still seems rather theoretical at this point. The mall once had the highest sales/square foot in the region, other than Tysons and Macy was the last anchor.

Macy's bought the Broadway but Federated bought May---Macy was was just their rebranding. May already had dumbed down the ADS chains or merged them into their own, mostly lower middle bracket chains. May was long a lower middle operator in southern California, so the merger with ADS's Robinson's was part of their long slog away from being a promotional store. May undertook consolidation of its various divisions through the 80s and 90s. Centralization under Federated/Macy was nothing new. Federated had been run as more of a holding company until the merger with Allied and then also undertook its own consolidations. Most of what's been blamed on "Macy's" was already in motion and it was Federated as the survivor who oversaw the final moves.

Dillard probably would die in coastal California as it has in its more northern markets for perhaps slightly different reasons--they gutted the polish and service that defined the old chains they bought like Stix and Higbees. In California, the lack of style and the mix of conservative with glitz wouldn't work.
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by ClownLoach »

buckguy wrote: January 10th, 2023, 6:25 am
steps wrote: January 9th, 2023, 5:04 pm
architect wrote: January 7th, 2023, 7:12 am Earlier this week, Macy's announced four additional store closures. I'm honestly surprised that there aren't more, as they still have quite a bit of low-hanging fruit.

- Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 4005 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles, CA (mall is under active redevelopment)
- Foothills Mall, 215 E Foothills Pkwy, Fort Collins, CO (store has been on previous "neighborhood store" lists for some time, and the mall has somewhat of a questionable future despite a revitalization in the 2010's)
- Windward Center, 46-056 Kamehameha Hwy, Kaneohe, HI
- Lakeforest Mall, 701 Russell Ave, Gaithersburg, MD (mall is being demolished and redeveloped starting either later this year or next year)
Macy's took over Broadway, closed it. They took over May Co there and now closing it. It seems like Macy's took over the competition destroyed them and now destroying themselves.

I wonder what is going to go into those buildings now? The area is a mixed bag of demographics of low to upper-mid. Target would definitely not move into there, Walmart already left and has been empty for awhile. I don't see any chain store that could possibly want to take these locations. It's prime real-estate but shrink would be way too high. The Walmart was successful but the shrink in the store was killing the profit.
I'm surprised they didn't close Crenshaw or Lakeforest quite awhile ago. The Lakeforest redevelopment still seems rather theoretical at this point. The mall once had the highest sales/square foot in the region, other than Tysons and Macy was the last anchor.

Macy's bought the Broadway but Federated bought May---Macy was was just their rebranding. May already had dumbed down the ADS chains or merged them into their own, mostly lower middle bracket chains. May was long a lower middle operator in southern California, so the merger with ADS's Robinson's was part of their long slog away from being a promotional store. May undertook consolidation of its various divisions through the 80s and 90s. Centralization under Federated/Macy was nothing new. Federated had been run as more of a holding company until the merger with Allied and then also undertook its own consolidations. Most of what's been blamed on "Macy's" was already in motion and it was Federated as the survivor who oversaw the final moves.

Dillard probably would die in coastal California as it has in its more northern markets for perhaps slightly different reasons--they gutted the polish and service that defined the old chains they bought like Stix and Higbees. In California, the lack of style and the mix of conservative with glitz wouldn't work.
I'm pretty sure the Windward Center location was already announced as a upcoming new Target store last year, so they were probably just waiting to complete the closure. They have other stores that aren't even on that list of "neighborhood" stores that are eventually closing - but we know they are from community meetings. The Women's store, which is the larger building in Mission Viejo, is eventually closing and consolidating into the Mens/Home building. Both of those stores look like they haven't received a shipment of new merchandise in years. They have so little product they could consolidate them tomorrow. They are going to tear down the women's building and replace with mixed use residential.

From my perspective I think Macy's did not have enough merchandise to sell in their stores this year. They definitely have fixed their previous problems of product overload with their supply chain revamp under the "Polaris" restructuring plan, but they went too far. They ship e-commerce from stores now and I think they shipped out so much from some locations that they did not have enough for the in store shopper. This is a very serious problem that many retailers have not been able to address yet - their demand planning systems order for in store traffic and send the most inventory to the busiest stores. The failure point is that e-commerce systems oversell from the stores with the most inventory, leaving them empty. On paper it might look good up front since sales are sales, but they disappoint the in store shopper at the most important high volume stores which will negatively impact future traffic. So the product gets sold at a lower margin (because of shipping costs) and the whole company underperforms because customers who want specific items have to choose shipping instead of buying off the shelf at their local store.
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by storewanderer »

buckguy wrote: January 10th, 2023, 6:25 am

Dillard probably would die in coastal California as it has in its more northern markets for perhaps slightly different reasons--they gutted the polish and service that defined the old chains they bought like Stix and Higbees. In California, the lack of style and the mix of conservative with glitz wouldn't work.
I think Dillard's would do fine in parts of California. I think there is easily potential for 15-20 stores. They would need to look for the "old money" types of areas. In Reno the Dillard's has particular strength on the women's shoes and women's purse/bag department. They have also tried to re-work their jewelry area as of late and add in more space for high cost sunglasses, not sure how that is working out, but the space is larger now than it was when they first put it out there, so it must be getting some traction. Macy's is very weak in these areas. I think Dillard's knows how to serve as a compliment to Macy's current operation, they aren't going to put Macy's out of business, but they can comfortably co-exist especially knowing at the corporate level they have little debt and own the majority of their stores outright unlike debt-loaded Macy's. They would not really be able to have multiple stores close together as Macys historically has. I'd estimate in NorCal for instance (in addition to the store they already have in Stockton) they could fit one store in a mature part of Sacramento, 3 in the bay area (one in Marin County/Santa Rosa, one around San Jose, and one near San Francisco), and that is probably about it for NorCal as I don't think Redding/Modesto would make sense (Redding is Redding and Modesto is too close to Stockton). Jury is out on Fresno/Bakersfield.
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by Romr123 »

To my mind, now Dillards = Trump-areas so would do OK in the inland parts of CA. Last time I was in one was in Franklin Park in Toledo (they have two stores there; Franklin Park (old money inner ring suburbia) and Fallen Timbers (new money open air exurbia). They have excellent men's big and tall, a reasonable men's department, and that's about it...they "call in" home so it's not even as attractive as Macys.
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by storewanderer »

Romr123 wrote: January 11th, 2023, 6:32 am To my mind, now Dillards = Trump-areas so would do OK in the inland parts of CA. Last time I was in one was in Franklin Park in Toledo (they have two stores there; Franklin Park (old money inner ring suburbia) and Fallen Timbers (new money open air exurbia). They have excellent men's big and tall, a reasonable men's department, and that's about it...they "call in" home so it's not even as attractive as Macys.
What do you mean by that they call in home?

The locations I've been to have an assortment of very good quality private label kitchen dishes and also bedding under multiple private labels, but assortment is not huge. Quality is very good; I have purchased a lot of items there (most at 65% off+extra 50% off). The assortment they do have is good. They do not sell junk in their home area. Their luggage program isn't bad either (usually about the best you can do there is 50% off+extra 50% off) as they start out quite a bit below the "MSRP" on the luggage. The Reno location has about 18k square feet for home/kitchen. They used to try a bridal registry thing but that has been gone for years in the store. With as much as Macy's has scaled their home area back, given half of its space to furniture/mattresses, cut SKUs entirely, and still seems to have a lot of junk mixed in with what little it has, at this point, I don't think they are any worse. Macy's still has a larger mix but I find what Dillard's has to be a lot better curated.
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Re: Macy’s 2020

Post by Romr123 »

when I say "call in" I mean they don't do much promotion, space or pizzazz--kind of a "Fiesta Ware and Pfaltzgraf" level (without any more stylish (Martha Stewart)/promotional stuff).
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