Macys Stores Closing by 2026

[storewanderer]

Both buildings in Reno are fully stocked and look acceptable to good depending what part. Various sections are actually somewhat crammed. But about 1/3 of the second floor of men's building is now mattresses. It used to be all home merchandise up there.

The home merchandise was the most egregious example of why Macy's needed to take control of ordering. They had years of supply on hand as lazy managers would over order to fill up the space so that it would not require maintenance or merchandising work. These stores are now having to condense the home product down. Doing this has probably saved Macy's hundreds of millions of dollars and improved profitability. I'll bet stores closed over the home department alone. A store is not going to make money if they sell let's say $5 million a year in home merchandise but the crazy manager orders $20 million of extra stock just to make the place look full.

Temecula tonight is surprisingly full looking as well. Between the two buildings I think they have nearly half a million square feet and they run it very well. Surprised that neither of them are the more contemporary design that was used in the new Lakewood and Westminster stores that both were closed within a few years of opening (Westminster became Target and Lakewood was leveled). This might be one of the most productive malls left in SoCal from a traffic perspective even though it's not necessary high end.

I think they went overboard on their cutbacks on home merchandise, in at least the stores I have been to recently.

WAY overboard and I hardly see any products being sold in that department anymore. It has few customers and few employees.

Presentation has been cleaned up...

[ClownLoach]

The home merchandise was the most egregious example of why Macy's needed to take control of ordering. They had years of supply on hand as lazy managers would over order to fill up the space so that it would not require maintenance or merchandising work. These stores are now having to condense the home product down. Doing this has probably saved Macy's hundreds of millions of dollars and improved profitability. I'll bet stores closed over the home department alone. A store is not going to make money if they sell let's say $5 million a year in home merchandise but the crazy manager orders $20 million of extra stock just to make the place look full.

Temecula tonight is surprisingly full looking as well. Between the two buildings I think they have nearly half a million square feet and they run it very well. Surprised that neither of them are the more contemporary design that was used in the new Lakewood and Westminster stores that both were closed within a few years of opening (Westminster became Target and Lakewood was leveled). This might be one of the most productive malls left in SoCal from a traffic perspective even though it's not necessary high end.

I think they went overboard on their cutbacks on home merchandise, in at least the stores I have been to recently.

WAY overboard and I hardly see any products being sold in that department anymore. It has few customers and few employees.

Presentation has been cleaned up...

They haven't reduced the SKU depth at all, just the inventory levels got back to earth. What difference does it make to the customer if the items are in stock and at the price they want? They sometimes had hundreds of cases of the exact same pots and pans spread out to cover all the dead space. This issue is the same thing that out BB&B into financial distress. The goal in retail is to buy merchandise on credit (net 180 term at best) and sell it before you pay for it. Macy's was literally ordering hundreds of the same damn item in some stores (not all!) and spreading it out to cover space. So instead of making a profit by selling the goods before they were paid for, instead they were paying for them well before sold and probably paying interest. They never had a SKU count higher than say Target but they were using as much space as a whole Target store in some cases. Remodeled stores were condensing down the space to expand apparel and other departments, add restaurants etc. as they did in Newport Beach for example. Newport didn't lose one item and the footprint of kitchen for example was reduced by half, and it actually looks much better as you don't see five separate displays of bulk piles of the same pots and pans. This is a fabulous example of how the eye tricks the brain and how that can really make a company go broke, such as the luxury grocers like Whole Foods that would have massive meat cases stuffed with thousands of $$$$ prime steaks and such despite selling only a few each day. At least Macy's figured it out themselves instead of succumbing to it.

[storewanderer]

I think they went overboard on their cutbacks on home merchandise, in at least the stores I have been to recently.

WAY overboard and I hardly see any products being sold in that department anymore. It has few customers and few employees.

Presentation has been cleaned up...

They haven't reduced the SKU depth at all, just the inventory levels got back to earth. What difference does it make to the customer if the items are in stock and at the price they want? They sometimes had hundreds of cases of the exact same pots and pans spread out to cover all the dead space. This issue is the same thing that out BB&B into financial distress. The goal in retail is to buy merchandise on credit (net 180 term at best) and sell it before you pay for it. Macy's was literally ordering hundreds of the same damn item in some stores (not all!) and spreading it out to cover space. So instead of making a profit by selling the goods before they were paid for, instead they were paying for them well before sold and probably paying interest. They never had a SKU count higher than say Target but they were using as much space as a whole Target store in some cases. Remodeled stores were condensing down the space to expand apparel and other departments, add restaurants etc. as they did in Newport Beach for example. Newport didn't lose one item and the footprint of kitchen for example was reduced by half, and it actually looks much better as you don't see five separate displays of bulk piles of the same pots and pans. This is a fabulous example of how the eye tricks the brain and how that can really make a company go broke, such as the luxury grocers like Whole Foods that would have massive meat cases stuffed with thousands of $$$$ prime steaks and such despite selling only a few each day. At least Macy's figured it out themselves instead of succumbing to it.

SKU depth is greatly reduced in my perception and that of MANY others who I've talked to about this. The department has hardly any customers or employees anymore. They had way more stuff than Target, all the fine Crystal for instance. Not to mention far more options for pillows, various comforters, etc. than any Target ever had in a much wider range of price scales. And their kitchen category again they just had so much more selection and mix on things like pans, serving dishes, glass, etc... maybe on gadgets their mix wasn't much better than Target. Small appliances they were way overstocked on, and things like cutting boards... way overstocked... knife sets... way overstocked. But in the end the mix was huge and it got a lot of customers. At least that is how the Northern California Macys West Stores were... maybe it was different in SoCal. Now there is little mix and few customers.

Not to mention how they completely hacked their holiday decor program. They used to have so much they'd rent a 5-10k square foot space out in the mall and fill it up and most of November/December it was running with 3-4 cashiers all day and customers buying the crap. Now they throw a few trees up in a walkway and put out a few ornament shelves and call it a day. No staffing effort, little mix, and still quite a bit left after Christmas.

[veteran+]

Yeah, I was not thinking of quantity. It was smart to reduce that substantially.

But variety? I'm not seeing it.

In fact I spoke to the Department Head and she said they keep on discontinuing lines.

I had a list of items I wanted to buy (that I always found at Macy's) and they were either OOS or discontinued.

[ClownLoach]

WAY overboard and I hardly see any products being sold in that department anymore. It has few customers and few employees.

Presentation has been cleaned up...

They haven't reduced the SKU depth at all, just the inventory levels got back to earth. What difference does it make to the customer if the items are in stock and at the price they want? They sometimes had hundreds of cases of the exact same pots and pans spread out to cover all the dead space. This issue is the same thing that out BB&B into financial distress. The goal in retail is to buy merchandise on credit (net 180 term at best) and sell it before you pay for it. Macy's was literally ordering hundreds of the same damn item in some stores (not all!) and spreading it out to cover space. So instead of making a profit by selling the goods before they were paid for, instead they were paying for them well before sold and probably paying interest. They never had a SKU count higher than say Target but they were using as much space as a whole Target store in some cases. Remodeled stores were condensing down the space to expand apparel and other departments, add restaurants etc. as they did in Newport Beach for example. Newport didn't lose one item and the footprint of kitchen for example was reduced by half, and it actually looks much better as you don't see five separate displays of bulk piles of the same pots and pans. This is a fabulous example of how the eye tricks the brain and how that can really make a company go broke, such as the luxury grocers like Whole Foods that would have massive meat cases stuffed with thousands of $$$$ prime steaks and such despite selling only a few each day. At least Macy's figured it out themselves instead of succumbing to it.

SKU depth is greatly reduced in my perception and that of MANY others who I've talked to about this. The department has hardly any customers or employees anymore. They had way more stuff than Target, all the fine Crystal for instance. Not to mention far more options for pillows, various comforters, etc. than any Target ever had in a much wider range of price scales. And their kitchen category again they just had so much more selection and mix on things like pans, serving dishes, glass, etc... maybe on gadgets their mix wasn't much better than Target. Small appliances they were way overstocked on, and things like cutting boards... way overstocked... knife sets... way overstocked. But in the end the mix was huge and it got a lot of customers. At least that is how the Northern California Macys West Stores were... maybe it was different in SoCal. Now there is little mix and few customers.

Not to mention how they completely hacked their holiday decor program. They used to have so much they'd rent a 5-10k square foot space out in the mall and fill it up and most of November/December it was running with 3-4 cashiers all day and customers buying the crap. Now they throw a few trees up in a walkway and put out a few ornament shelves and call it a day. No staffing effort, little mix, and still quite a bit left after Christmas.

I think a lot of this has shifted to Bloomingdales back when they were introduced to SoCal. I have not seen much in the way of crystal or premium service ware in SoCal except at Bloomingdales.

Bedding and such has always been inconsistent from store to store at Macy's but I do agree that sheets, blankets and such were downsized about 2010.

Kitchen goods is where I really don't see the difference in SKU depth, but I see the most dramatic change in the inventory levels where there is a fraction of the amount as before. The only place where it felt like the SKU depth was actually reduced is the separate Home Store at South Coast Plaza where once again when Bloomingdales was opened on the other side all the premium knives, top end electrics shifted over there.

Seasonal goods in general are something I spent a lot of time dealing with, and inexplicably the volume of sales from store to store in the same market is very different. Sometimes the lowest volume store year round is the highest volume in the Christmas merchandise category. So I would chalk this up to better inventory management. Where I'm at now Macy's had the largest Christmas display I've seen since the years of that freestanding mall shop and it was wiped clean by about Dec. 15th. But I was in another store where it didn't look like they had more than maybe three little trees of ornaments.

One of the biggest problems I think all of our perceptions align towards is Macy's merchandising itself. Their visual merchandising is poor at best. A good visual merchandiser will make a little inventory look like a lot. Many consumers equate presentation size to selection, and as such a weak presentation creates the illusion of a "scaled down" store which may or may not be true. There may be some legitimate need for Macy's to bump up stock levels in departments where there is a shocking visual difference from a few years ago to now, like kitchenware, because the customer sees how their store has changed and immediately assumes that selection was slashed. Seasonal merchandise is a similar business where visual impact drives sales. Someone compared Michaels and JoAnn, and the difference I see is that Michaels constantly shifts, moves, massages and manipulates their seasonal displays so they still look full. JoAnn on the other hand would set up the aisles and not make any changes until the next season, so after a few weeks there are more empty shelves than full ones and it feels like you're shopping the leftovers when most/all of the goods might still be available.

I also think the localized assortment needs to be worked on. You mentioned that Northern California Macy's had much more assortment in Home products than SoCal, my perception is the SoCal stores generally are smaller boxes, and it seems like the company tried to make all the California stores the same. That may be why nothing changed here (because the stores already had a smaller assortment) but up there you're seeing a massive slashing. I've never felt that Macy's SoCal operation was as good as other regions, for example I loved the store I visited in Orlando where I felt like I was shopping a completely different chain.

Good news is that Bloomingdales does a much better job with visual merchandising and assortment by store, and the CEO came from there so again hopefully he will move those best practices over to the Macy's side.