Ever since they put that pea under the princess's mattress a long, long time ago the bedding business has been pretty sleepy… and yes, the pun was too obvious to pass up. For decades it was dominated by three big national brands, sold in department stores, furniture dealers and a vast number of local and regional specialty shops and the products were deceptively similar underneath their plain white wrappers. But over the past decade -- and especially just the last few years -- all of that has changed and there is a remarkable transformation …
Operations
An Evolutionary Reinvention of Retail
PrePan…Pan…Not-Yet-PostPan. What does the world of retail look like now? What did we learn? What did we let go of …and what changed us? Here's a retrospective look forward. 1. Shopping Safely You'd have to living in a cave not to know that digital sales have exploded in our Pan world. Just between March and April of this year, the first month of our shared Pandemic, the number of customers buying online increased in the U.S. by more than 30 percent. The dollar volume was even higher as everyday shopping was reinvented. On Black Friday, the …
Why Nordstrom Needs to Go Home
You know the expression "Go Big…or Go Home?" Well, for Nordstrom, it's more like "Go Home…and Go Big." As the upscale department store faces the severest challenge in its history, ramping up its home furnishings department and offering a full-blown assortment of housewares, textiles and home décor could generate as much as $500 million in additional sales every year. No other initiative it might be considering has the potential to be as impactful as does doubling down in home. With traffic in its prime shopping center locations severely …
Specialty Retail’s Reformation
Being declared nonessential during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns perfectly captures the literal truth about mall-based specialty retail. In fact, specialty stores only exist in the first place because they are magic. They invite us into beautiful stage sets, create new aspirations and help cater to our most refined tastes. Les Wexner, the one-time owner of over a dozen specialty retail chains, frequently reminded his executives that they were in the "wants" business, not the "needs" business. His most scathing (and still printable) …
Will LVMH Recreate an Identity for Tiffany?
At some point in the last decade, the great American luxury retailer Tiffany & Co. lost its identity. Its many attempts to redefine its brand to attract millennials have produced mixed results. Will the $15.8 billion acquisition by French holdings company LVMH help in creating a cohesive identity for the iconic luxury retailer in a modern world? How Tiffany Lost Its Way During the past five years, Tiffany could be better defined for its management shakeups than for creating an identity with broad appeal. Here's one dramatic casualty: …
A Smaller Nordstrom Footprint
Retail analysts and executives have long known that the U.S. is "overstored," with far more retail space per capita than other countries. More specifically, one could say the U.S. is "overmalled," with roughly 1,200 malls (depending on exactly how you count). So-called "A" malls have generally remained quite healthy, with high occupancy rates and strong sales per square-foot. Despite representing only about a quarter of the U.S. mall universe, those properties hold around 80 percent of the total value of all U.S. malls. Of the remaining 75 …
Grey Is the New Black
An increasing number of major brick-and-mortar retailers-led by Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and The Home Depot-will not open their doors on Thanksgiving, giving employees the day off and pushing more spending to digital channels. What's more, fewer promotions have been targeted specifically for the day after Thanksgiving, today, traditionally known as Black Friday. Over the past few years, our ramped-up consumer culture has expanded Black Friday from a one-day, to a weekend-long, to a week-long event. However, in the year of pandemic, Black …
Can Off-Price Retail Recover from Covid-19?
Over the past quarter-century, the growth of off-price has been one of the biggest long-term retail trends in the U.S. Neither the 2000 tech bust nor the Great Recession of 2008-2009 interrupted the growth of this market segment. The increasing size of off-price relative to the full-price retail ecosystem (and especially department stores) hasn't hindered growth, either. During the decade ending last year, industry leaders TJX Companies, Ross Stores, and Burlington Stores all roughly doubled their sales. However, that long-term growth trend …