Did you know that Macy's annual turnover is 4.7B, but the Herald Square property with their flagship store in New York City is worth 9B?
Umm…whoops?
Investors are calling for Macy’s to be sold for parts in order to recover the value in the company’s tangible assets. We will soon be talking of Macy’s in the past tense. There are many reasons for the demise of these storied retail chains, consumer behavior being in the front-and-center.
This trend is rapidly altering how we shop.
We consider our family to be sufficiently tech savvy. Yet, we still buy most of our clothes in stores. We are terribly spoiled by having a fantastic outlet mall and consolidators like TJMaxx and Burlington near us. The quality and prices in these shops are hard to beat. Plus, who doesn’t want to try on a pair of pants for fit rather than guessing from an obtuse size guide.
As much as I love these shops, we cannot go to them saying, “I need a blue sweater.” We make do with what is available. The blue sweater comes from online shopping. Even though we have become increasingly comfortable with shopping for clothes online, it takes hours of research, reading comments and a huge amount of judgment. It probably takes me double or triple the time compared to a Millennial or GenZ shopper to hit “Add to Cart.” The younger and smarter consumer orders several sizes, tries on at home and returns the pieces that don’t fit.
Click, try, ship, done. Once you get into that mindset, game over for the likes of Macy’s.
I recently went to a nearby store to buy bed sheets. There were three of the size and price range I wanted on the shelves. THREE! The rest were available online. I kicked myself for falling into the last-century mindset and driving to the store. We are retraining ourselves with an online-first strategy, despite the occasional inconvenience.
On the whole the delivery gaffes have worked in my favor more often than not.
I found a pair of shoes online that had the right price and 2,000 reviews on size, blister potential, heel comfort and fit. The pair arrived in three days and fit well. Two days later a second pair was on its way. And then a third pair! Long story short, I had to work with customer support to break the cycle of deliveries. Two deliveries also happened with my holiday card and wall calendar order after USPS failed to deliver. The vendor - extremely concerned about a bad review - immediately sent me a second order by which time USPS sorted its mess and delivered the first package. They got a glowing review from me.
The ubiquitous chatbots are most helpful when things go awry and connect us to a human on cue.
Regardless of the occasional troubles, it is past time to change the way we think, research, shop and return. Let’s get with the program because Macy’s is on life support here along with all the other chains we have shopped at for decades unless they have successfully adapted to the new consumer paradigm. Hopefully, AI will help us ease into the right mindset sooner than later.
Happy clicking!
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