Warren Shoulberg

The Pier 1 Bankruptcy: Guess Who Is Getting All That Business?

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How many inexpensive candles, decorative pillows, bowls and small tables and chairs does it take to equal $332 million? Apparently, quite a few because that's the amount of sales Pier 1 has cumulatively lost over the past five years, all of which came to a head on February 17 when it filed for bankruptcy and put itself up for sale. It raises the question of exactly where did those sales go and who's likely to get additional revenue as the company struggles to stay in business? While several competing retailers have benefited from Pier 1's …

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The Chinese Supply Chain for U.S. Goods Is About to Get Unhinged

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It's May 1, 2020 -- do you know where your goods are? For retailers and the vendors who supply them, the calendar may only read February today, but everyone is more focused on what happens when winter turns to spring, and the impact of the coronavirus is turning supply chains upside down. As the virus in China continues to spread, both in the country and outside, the short-term business issues have been travel restrictions, show cancellations, shop closures and disruptions in the working relationships between the people who make the goods …

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What Do Closings of Bose And Papyrus Stores Say About Physical Retailing?

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At first glance, the two couldn't be more different. One sold high tech audio equipment, the other stylish, nostalgic paper products. One was a pioneer in the concept of giving shoppers a hands-on experience with an expensive, technical product. The other was a reboot, flying counter to the prevailing winds that saw its core business decimated by digital communications. One would continue to sell its merchandise online; the other's future is somewhat more uncertain. But does the news of the closings of all 119 Bose stores in the U.S, Europe, …

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A Shiny Penney Opens Amidst the Tarnish

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Imagine a JC Penney store where the layout is modern and cool, where there are extras like hair salons, shoe repair, video games, copious seating throughout the store; where the merchandise is smart but right for the customer base and where you might even run into the ghost of Ron Johnson. You can imagine such a store or you can go see it in person halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth at the North East Mall in the town of Hurst, TX. This past November, Penney reopened the store as a test lab for the kinds of merchandising initiatives it …

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To Dream the Possibly Impossible (American) Dream

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Talk about tilting at windmills…in the midst of the biggest challenge physical store retailing has ever faced, someone has built the largest shopping and entertainment complex in the country in the wilds of New Jersey. The Man of LaMancha had it easy compared to the Men of Ghermezian. The Ghermezian family is the developer and evangelist for American Dream, the three-million-plus-plus-square-feet complex in the Jersey Meadowlands that had its partial opening in October and is scheduled to go full-tilt-retail-boogie this March. With space for …

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Who is Tractor Supply Co, and Why Did Hal Lawton Go There?

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Chances are if you live east of the Hudson River, or in many urban areas of the country, you were probably not very familiar with Tractor Supply Co. before the news broke last week that Hal Lawton was leaving his post as president of New York Macy's to join the Brentwood, Tennessee retailer as CEO. And even if you knew of TSC you've probably never been in one of their stores and most likely never envisioned it as something along the lines of a cross between a farm vehicle repair garage and Drucker's General Store on the old Green Acres TV …

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A Look at the DCs

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One can imagine headlines about the death of retailing a few generations ago when discount stores first burst upon the scene and supplanted long-standing department stores as the dominant players on the shopping scene. Today, we're seeing the same thing with news on e-commerce knocking out physical retailing and doom-and-gloom reports about the business of shopping. Taking that blinders-on view of the business 50 years ago was a foolish pursuit, so too is judging the health of retail-based solely on the number of closed stores and failed …

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Wayfair is Way, Way Away from Profitability

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Wayfair, your WeWork/Uber/Slack/et al. wake-up call is here. After yet another quarter of dramatically increasing losses and despite an equally dramatic increase in revenue, Wayfair is in danger of being caught in a dangerous vortex in the investment community. The online home furnishings seller, which has posted big gains in its sales, customer counts and average tickets for years, has yet to make a dime, losing money for 21 straight quarters. And while that was acceptable for a very long time on a Wall Street obsessed with the endgame, it …

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