Tuna with credit cards.

Today’s sales 2484, best day so far.

I pretty much kicked ass today from beginning to end, and for the last couple of days as well. Even though I only did 1100+ Saturday for example, I was also only there for 6 hours. I would have tried to pick up Sunday, but I had worked 46 hours this week and I needed the break. When you work on commission, with the same people, in a room with no windows, artificial lighting and pumped in music all day, every day, you need to get away from it after a while. Heck, even used car salesmen get to at least see the outside.

Our goals are set low this week, I don’t really know why. I had mine beat before noon so after that I was good to go. Of course “goal” is pretty meaningless, 2 weeks ago they were completely over the top, I think I was at 10,000 for the week. It’s nice that the store manager has a dream 

Of course, “goal” means nothing in terms of money. To us on the floor, the equation is

(Total sales times % percent commission) minus (# hours times draw rate)

While your annual review does take into consideration % goal, number of credit apps opened and some other stuff, honestly, on the floor, all we really care about is the commission. It’s not like your review is going to increase your base pay, since there isn’t any, or increase your commission rate, so what’s in it for me, aside from getting to keep my job?

Plus, the store staffing levels are completely out of control, to the point where not only are we snapping at each other like dogs, but we smile when someone calls in sick and absolutely rejoice when someone gets fired. It’s ugly but the store management systems are so broken and irrelevant that we have to basically ignore most of the edicts just to make enough money so we can even afford to work there.

The floor is so overstaffed now that its nearly impossible to make a buck without having to crush someone else to do it. I hate that, but this isn’t a popularity contest. I’d like this to be easier (I know it can be done) but when you have 13 people on a selling floor, someone is going to get their feelings hurt. Today we were two down, and I made some money, but I was maybe the only one.

Some subscribe to the concept that the store doesn’t want to pay commission. They want us to at least earn our draw ( what the store pays you, till you make more than that amount in commission) but not much more. When the draw rate is only $8.00 an hour, nobody is getting rich. Plus, if you fall below the draw, you actually end up OWING the store money. So, in our business you get two types of people. The sharks, feeding machines who consume everything in their path, and dolphins, benign beings who might make it, but many of which end up quitting/getting fired.

The customers are just tuna to us. Tuna with credit cards.

Managers say ‘well more staff means more sales” but that is patently untrue. If they were to look at total dollars done on the floor, by salesperson, by hour, they would see that even with a 10-20% reduction in staffing, the same dollars would get done. Customers would get BETTER service since we would not be trying to steal sales from each other, we would make MORE money, and therefore be a much happier (IE: inclined to go the extra more for the customer and store) as sales staff and we would attain a reputation of a service oriented store (a la Nordstrom’s for example which is base + commission) rather than a high end J C Penny’s. Chicagoans already HATE Macy’s, we don’t need to give them another reason.

I have yet to see customers walking around on the floor with merchandise in their hands looking for someone to ring them up. What I do see is salespeople circling them like sharks, spreading themselves thin to “claim” as many customers as their own as possible, (meaning that even if I have no customers, I can’t wait on you) giving quality service to few, if any, and having to fight other staff off to do it.

I am very lucky, lately I have had several high dollar customers who demanded and got the kind of quality service I am good at. I’m VERY good at what I do since it’s not “sales” so much as “service.” You come in and tell me you have a new job where the dress code is “business causal” and I ask things like “are you trying to build a wardrobe or just filling in a few missing pieces?” for example. I don’t try to sell you anything, I aim to help you find what you want, or figure out what you want and get it for you. I ask questions like “ what shoes were you planning to wear with those slacks?” so they can either ask for advice on it, or conform the fact that they know this is a good purchase for them.

In the end, its all about making it easy for them to say yes to the sale.

Yes they fit
Yes I like them
Yes it will work with the rest of my wardrobe
Yes I think this is a good value for the money.

I’m lucky, because I seem to attract customers who benefit from my kind of help. The rest of the staff kind of just makes stuff up as they go along. If they see someone walking around with a $200 pair of jeans, they zone in on them and head for the kill. It’s not sales so much as its an ambush. And this is because of the staffing levels.

The only was the staffing levels are going to change is if Macy’s takes us hourly. Then you can bet that not only will the hours come down, but there will be a tidal wave of people running for the exits. After years of having the store send mixed messages, this will be one that nobody will misunderstand.

In the end, I try not to get too worked up about it all. It’s only retail

Bad to Worse

Stock spotlight
SPOTLIGHT | Sale rumors lift Macy's

September 15, 2007
Macy's Inc. shares rose 3.2 percent amid renewed speculation that the second-largest U.S. department-store chain will be acquired. Friday's talk was that Vornado Realty Trust and Edward Lampert's ESL Investments Inc. hedge fund would buy it for $43 a share. Macy's shares rose 93 cents to $30.18.

Stock spotlight

August 30, 2007
Macy's shares jumped 6.2 percent, or $1.84 to $31.69 Wednesday. On Tuesday, Cincinnati-based Macy's raised $350 million by offering 5.5-year notes that paid 73 basis points more than five-year debt issued in March. On Wednesday, it announced that Ticketmaster would open 38 more outlets in its stores.

Macy's cuts outlook after profit falls 77 percent for the quarter
RETAILING | Cost of integrating May stores blamed, shares dip 2 percent

August 16, 2007
BY SANDRA GUY sguy@suntimes.com
Macy's suffered a 77 percent drop in profits and a sales decline in the second quarter, and cut its full-year sales and earnings outlook.

Yet executives said strong sales on the Web and shoppers' response to renewed coupon promotions and a new Martha Stewart collection show promise in a weak economy.

Macy's shares dipped 63 cents, or about 2 percent, to $31.10.

Profits were hurt by higher-than-expected costs of integrating more than 400 former May Department Stores, including the Marshall Field's chain. Macy's bought the May Department Stores for $11 billion in August 2005.

But cost cuts helped shrink selling, general and administrative expenses.

Sales at the former Marshall Field's and other May stores continue to disappoint, but are closing the gap in performance with long-time Macy's stores, Chief Financial Officer Karen Hoguet said in a conference call with analysts.

The gap should close next year, but the converted Marshall Field's stores might take longer to gain acceptance, Hoguet said. Long-time Macy's stores were hurt by missteps in color and style in ready-to-wear clothing in the spring. Hoguet said Macy's executives believe they have the right fashions for fall, such as denim, wide-leg pants and novelty jackets and coats.

Executives saw good news in early sales of Martha Stewart's exclusive line of home fashions for Macy's: Martha's goods are already listed on 35 percent of bridal registries. The line of bedding, bath, cookwear and decorating kits will debut in all Macy's stores on Sept. 10 -- one day after the first anniversary of Macy's going nationwide -- though it already is displayed on the first floor of the State Street flagship store in Chicago.

Macy's is working to increase the number of exclusive and limited-distribution merchandise it sells. It will sell 19 collections by Chicago-based fashion designers at the State Street store, starting Oct. 9.

For the quarter ended Aug. 4, Macy's overall net income declined to $74 million, or 16 cents a share, from $317 million, or 57 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding May Department Stores' takeover costs of $60 million, or 13 cents per share, the company earned 29 cents per share.

Last month, it cut its forecast to 20 to 30 cents for the quarter, from its earlier forecast of 35 to 45 cents.

Sales slipped 1.7 percent to $5.89 billion. Macy's had initially expected sales of $6.1 billion to $6.2 billion in the period. Same-store sales declined 2.6 percent, short of Macy's forecast of an increase of 1.5 to 2.5 percent.

Analysts had forecast profits of 26 cents per share on revenue of $5.88 billion.

Macy's reduced its third-quarter profit outlook to 5 to 10 cents per share.

It expects earnings for the full year, without the merger costs, of $2.15 to $2.30 per share.

Macy's posts sharply lower 2Q profit

August 15, 2007

CINCINNATI -- Macy's Inc. said Wednesday its second-quarter profit fell by 77 percent, weighed down by its takeover of a rival, and warned that it would miss Wall Street expectations for the third quarter and the year.

Net income declined to $74 million, or 16 cents per share, from $317 million, or 57 cents per share, a year ago for the quarter ended Aug. 4. Excluding May Department Stores takeover costs of $60 million, or 13 cents per share, the company earned 29 cents per share in the latest period, compared with 33 cents in the 2006 second quarter.
» Click to enlarge image
Macy's second-quarter profit fell by 77 percent.
(AP)

Sales slipped about 2 percent to $5.89 billion from nearly $6 billion last year.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, who typically exclude one time charges like integration costs, had forecast profits of 26 cents per share on revenue of $5.88 billion. Last month, Macy's cut its third quarter profit outlook to 20 to 30 cents a share from 35 to 45 cents.

Macy's projected that third-quarter earnings, excluding merger costs, will now be 5 to 10 cents per share, with earnings for the full year, without the merger costs, of $2.15 to $2.30 per share. Analysts have projected 19 cents a share for the third quarter and $2.37 per share for the year.

Macy's stock fell below its 52-week low Wednesday, at $31.10, or down 63 cents. Shares have traded as high as $46.70 in the past year.

''While the second quarter was below our initial expectations, we did see improving sales trends through the quarter in former May Company stores and in home-related merchandise categories,'' said Terry J. Lundgren, Macy's chairman, president and chief executive. ''We are optimistic that our business can and will improve in the second half of the year, despite what appears to be a more challenging economic environment.''

Lundgren told shareholders at their annual meeting in May that disappointing sales results were partly due to strategic changes made too quickly at the former May Department Stores. Lundgren orchestrated Macy's $11 billion acquisition of May in 2005.

Macy's changed its name from Federated Department Stores this year after converting most of its former May stores -- including popular regional names such as Marshall Field's, Foley's and Filene's -- into Macy's in its push to make Macy's a national department store brand.

The turnaround of the former May stores hasn't progressed as well as expected, and the retailer also has been facing challenges such as a weakening home market, which has depressed its home furnishings sales.

For the first half of the year, Macy's sales totaled $11.81 billion, down nearly 1 percent from total sales of $11.93 billion in the first 26 weeks of 2006. For the first half, net income slid to $110 million, or 24 cents a share, from $265 million, 48 cents a share.

Macy's operates more than 850 department stores in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico under the names of Macy's and Bloomingdale's. AP

New Macy's distribution center will employ 130 fewer

August 14, 2007
BY SANDRA GUY sguy@suntimes.com
Macy's will build a new distribution center in southwest suburban Minooka to replace its existing distribution center at 4000 W. Diversey Ave., which will be shuttered in the spring.

The new 850,000-square-foot center will employ 210 -- 150 full-time and 60 part-time -- or 130 fewer workers than at the 1.55-million-square-foot center on Diversey. The new center, about 50 miles southwest of Chicago, will open in early spring 2008.

Macy's cut more than 200 jobs at the existing center earlier this year by outsourcing furniture delivery, reducing some interior-design services, and converting other systems. The center at one time served 44 Marshall Field's and Dayton Hudson stores.

Macy's spokesman Jim Sluzewski said the retailer will try to put displaced employees in other jobs. Employees who cannot find new jobs or who choose not to accept other positions will be eligible for severance pay and outplacement help, he said. Workers were given the news Monday morning.

Macy's will move a furniture clearance store at the Diversey site to leased space in a retail center near Fox Valley Mall in Aurora.

The new furniture clearance store will employ the same number -- 10 -- as the existing store. The new store is set to open this year.

The existing distribution center is housed in a six-story building that was developed in stages starting in the 1930s, and formerly run by Marshall Field's. The Minooka building will be one story. Macy's bought the Field's chain in August 2005, and turned Field's stores into Macy's in September 2006.

Macy's will sell the land on Diversey.

Tom Cole, Macy's vice chairman, said in a statement the new distribution center will be more efficient than the existing one and was necessary to accommodate Macy's growing online business.

"The Minooka site was selected following an exhaustive search of potential locations in Chicago and the surrounding region," Cole said. "We are proud to have elected to keep this facility in the state of Illinois."

Macy's employs 6,500 people in the greater Chicago area aside from the distribution center, including 2,400 in the city of Chicago.

A tale of two Julys in world of shops
ECONOMY | Retailers suffer, discounters enjoy sales gains

August 10, 2007
BY SANDRA GUY sguy@suntimes.com

Wary shoppers chose discount stores and off-mall department stores for back-to-school fashions in July, raising gloomy prospects for retailers heading into the fall season.

Macy's, owner of the former Marshall Field's department-store chain, said Thursday its same-store sales declined 1.4 percent in July, better than analysts' forecast of a 2.1 percent drop. Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, are considered a key sign of a retailer's health.

Total sales, which include new stores such as the Macy's in Bolingbrook, dipped 0.2 percent, to $1.6 billion, in the four weeks that ended Aug. 4.

» Click to enlarge image
Macy's State Street store in Chicago. The back-to-school shopping season had a disappointing start in July as consumers rattled by a weakening housing market and other financial pressures stayed away from stores and malls.
(AP/Brian Kersey, file)

Bon-Ton, owner of the Carson Pirie Scott & Co. chain, reported same-store sales in July dropped 7.6 percent at all of its stores, but the Carson's division by itself had a 1.5 percent sales decline. The Elder-Beerman chain's same-store sales plummeted 17.3 percent. Total sales declined 7.6 percent, to $194.3 million.

Bon-Ton's numbers, while disappointing, look even worse because they're being compared with last year's liquidation sales following Bon-Ton's takeover of the Carson's division of Saks, said Tony Buccina, vice chairman and president of merchandising.

Specialty stores also were hard hit, with steep declines in same-store sales at Aeropostale (12 percent), Abercrombie & Fitch (4 percent), American Eagle Outfitters (6 percent), Gap (7 percent), Pacific Sunwear (4.6 percent) and Wet Seal (7.2 percent).

Department and teen-specialty stores were hit by shoppers' concerns about high gasoline prices and a slumping housing market that's causing a credit squeeze, as well as a shift in the retail calendar that moved some back-to-school sales into August.

Those that reported strong same-store sales gains were: Target (6.1 percent), J.C. Penney (10.8 percent), and Wal-Mart (1.9 percent on strong grocery sales, at the high end of expectations), as well as the perennially strong high-end retailer Nordstrom (9.4 percent).

Analysts held out hope that shoppers are waiting until the last minute for discounts.

A Death In The Family

The only thing sadder than an empty school is an empty department store. One is accustomed to there being the hustle and bustle of humans going about their activities with a purposeful stride and a clear intent about them. There is supposed to be a “constant” about the place and when there is not, it’s just spooky.

Once upon a time, Lord & Taylor and Marshall Fields were owned by the The May Company. There is a long and storied history behind both of these name plates and their brief glancing relationship was not destined to be long lasting. L & T (1826) was the oldest department name in the country and Fields (1852) was famous throughout the country for its innovations and quality. The road to divorce and death is a long and ugly one.

Let me say first off that May was the Death Star of retail, few if any mourn their passing. I worked for some May stores, H & S Pogues, L.S. Ayres, L & T and it was never pretty. They were known throughout the business as being cheap and dirty stores full of crap merchandise. Even L & T suffered, though they were spared the worst. Everyone knew that May bought them to burnish their image. Polish it all you want, since the middle ages man has known that no matter how much you polish it, you can't turn brass into gold.

The management was mean and stingy, attracting low end employees who were treated badly. There was always a ‘sale” of one variety or another, I don’t know that I ever sold anything full priced, since the shoppers were accustomed to waiting for markdowns, coupons and clearances.

Drama mamas part one

May also tended to lurched from self induced crisis to self induced crisis, gobbling up heritage stores and groups like Associated Dry Goods ( Robinsons, Stewarts, Goldwaters, Stix Baer, Denver Dry Goods, Ayres, Horne, and Caldor) in 1986, killing off the nameplates, and with it any goodwill left for them, driving them into the ground. May sucked and working for them was like a gulag.

After May bought ADG, they renamed/merged most of the stores except L & T, one of the few wise moves they every made. However, May just didn’t get it and they paid the most extreme price, being gobbled up by Federated in 2005 in a massive land grab not seen since the Sears/K-Mart bloodbath.

Drama mamas part two

Federated Department Stores also had a storied heritage, though not without it’s own reckless, egregious and hubris-filled moments. In a stereotypically greed-is-good moment, they were merged with the Allied Stores group in 1988 by Robert Campeau (idiot Canadian real estate Trump wannabe) whereupon the entire shebang went belly up into bankruptcy in 1990, taking such brand names as Bonwitt, Jordan Marsh, Stern’s, Ann Taylor, Brooks Brothers, and my home town Mabley & Carew with them.. I was ever so lucky to be working there when the shit hit the fan.

Then they decided to buy Macy’s.

Macy’s bought itself out in 1986 and then duked it out with Campeau Corp (the bad guys) in 1988 for Federated, walking away with Bullocks, Bullocks Wilshire and I. Magnin for their troubles. Then in 1992 the ship sank with all hands aboard, and yet another heritage nameplate was in the courts, hat in hand. After a long and difficult courtship, R.H. Macy & Co. finally merged with Federated Department Stores on December 19, 1994

A brief visit.

Fields was sold by Dayton-Hudson (Target) to May when even they couldn’t make it work and decided to abandon the department store tradition and focus on the upscale end of the discount market. Target survived. Fields didn’t. With the Federated/May merger Fields had 3 owners in 2 years.

And so, for one brief shining moment, Fields and L & T, sister stores by marriages of convenience and connivance lived nestled next to each other at 835 N. Michigan Ave here in Chicago at The Watertower Place shopping center. Both had been original anchor tenants of this impressive and wildly successful retail reinvention, the “vertical shopping mall” in one of the grandest shopping districts in the United States.

Sadly it was not destined to be. Federated, which was busy tinkering with its own heritage nameplate stores like Lazarus, Bullocks, I Magnin, Rich’s, Foleys, Burdines, Abraham & Straus, Filene's and Bloomingdales decided to flush them all and call the whole thing Macy’s. While most May shoppers welcomed it, Fields shoppers are STILL bitching about it, and Macys had admitted their own misstep in the America’s #3 market. Oooops!

Hugging Goodbye.

Federated decided that there was no room in the family for L & T, and sold them off to a real estate group called NDRC Equity Partners, LLC

“June 22, 2006--Federated Department Stores, Inc. (NYSE:FD)(NYSE Arca:FD) today announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its New York-based Lord & Taylor division to NRDC Equity Partners, LLC for $1.195 billion in cash. NRDC Equity Partners, based in Purchase, NY, is a partnership between principals of Apollo Real Estate Advisors, L.P. and principals of National Realty & Development Corp.”

They bought it for the real estate.

And so, on March 27, 2007, they turned the lights off next door. Lord & Taylor, we’ll miss you. If it’s any consolation, “only the good die young.”

Federated to change symbol to `M' after Macy's switch

By Edgar Ortega and Cotten Timberlake
Bloomberg News
Published March 28, 2007, 5:05 PM CDT

Federated Department Stores Inc., owner of Macy's and Bloomingdale's, will change its stock symbol to ``M'' after it begins operating under the Macy's Inc. name.

The symbol will switch from ``FD'' effective June 1 if shareholders agree to the company name change at their annual meeting on May 18, the retailer said today in a statement.

Federated will ask investors to approve the name Macy's Inc., rather than previously planned Macy's Group Inc., because the single-letter stock symbol was available. Federated, which purchased May Department Stores Co. in 2005, has doubled the number of Macy's stores to 800 to create a nationwide chain. Macy's accounts for 90 percent of Federated's revenue.

The New York Stock Exchange is assigning ``M'' to a company for the first time since 1993. Investors have speculated that the exchange was reserving the symbol to lure Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, from the Nasdaq.

``A single letter obviously has a lot of power and simplicity,'' said Federated spokesman Jim Sluzewski. ``When we had availability to the single letter, it made more sense to shorten the name to keep it as simple as possible.''

Shares of Federated, based in Cincinnati, fell 80 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $45.43 at 3:43 p.m. in NYSE composite trading. They increased 15 percent last year, less than half the 39 percent gain for rival J.C. Penney Co.

Under Chief Executive Officer Terry Lundgren, Federated converted 11 May nameplates, including Marshall Field's and Filene's, to the Macy's brand. It also operates the smaller Bloomingdale's chain, which has 38 stores.

The company, the second-largest department-store operator after Sears Holding Corp., was founded under the Federated name in 1929. It has traded under the ``FD'' symbol since 1992.

Macy's shoppers speak out

Store battling to win back disenchanted





Robert Cherry, with wife Christine and daughters Devin, 9, and Fiona, 5, bought lots of items at the Macy's on State Street, but still finds it disappointing that it's not a Field's. (Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)

January 10, 2007

BY SANDRA GUY Business Reporter

The battle for the hearts and pocketbooks of former Marshall Field & Co. shoppers has prompted the top executive to write his own e-mail pleas.

Antagonists of the transformation to Macy's from Field's have deluged chatrooms and reporters with postings and e-mails.

Macy's management has countered with an aggressive campaign of its own, daily surveying hundreds of shoppers about their Macy's experience, and pleading with Field's loyalists to give Macy's a chance.

In one recent case, Robert Cherry, a 39-year-old father and a Darien native who now works as a general manager overseas, e-mailed Terry Lundgren, CEO of Macy's parent Federated Department Stores, which bought the Field's chain and nine other regional chains from May Department Stores for $11.9 billion in August 2005.

Cherry defended Field's "terrific brand equity" and recounted "how visceral people's connection to Field's is in Chicago.

"My mother worked her way through college at the Field's on State Street," Cherry said. "Even as a boy, I enjoyed going there."

Lundgren responded, writing that sales at Field's had declined for six years, and that the competitive landscape had changed dramatically in Chicago and nationwide.

"Regional department stores have struggled, and Marshall Field's was among the weakest performers on most levels," Lundgren wrote, and asked Cherry to try shopping at Macy's.

Cherry said he was surprised and humbled to receive the e-mail, and believed the message was from someone who was trying to save the department store.

Cherry led his family on a Jan. 2 shopping trip to Macy's flagship store, where they had lunch in the Walnut Room.

"We got a sense that the staff was making an extra effort to be helpful, and that the store was spruced up," Cherry said.

But the battle is far from won.

"At the end of the day, it's still disappointing to see the Field's brand gone," Cherry said.

Other shoppers have embraced Macy's without shedding a tear.

In an e-mail and interviews with the Sun-Times, Dee and Joseph Bryja, native Chicagoans and life-long Marshall Field's shoppers, said, "Customer service is exemplary at Macy's."

The Bryjas said they are pleased by the cleaner and brighter appearance of the Macy's flagship store at 111 N. State St. than at its predecessor Field's store, and by the salespeoples' easily identifiable black clothing.

The Bryja family exchanged more gifts from Macy's this Christmas Eve than they had previously bought at Field's.

Amy Hanson, vice chairwoman of administration at Macy's North in Minneapolis, where she oversees the Field's regional division's finances and operations, told the Sun-Times that surveys show shoppers can be won over by store redesigns, new merchandise and improved sales help.

Hanson, 48, rose through the ranks at Federated Department Stores in her 23-year tenure at the Cincinnati-based company.

Macy's executives read customer feedback every day, and take it seriously, Hanson said.

"I'm passionate about restrooms and fitting rooms," she said. "I want our customers to be 'wowed' by every moment in our stores."

Hanson said she has learned that she must communicate clearly because of misunderstandings. Some Field's customers believed incorrectly that Federated would build new Macy's stores in the Chicago area, while others are surprised to learn that her regional office is on the 9th floor of the Macy's store in downtown Minneapolis, where Dayton-Hudson was headquartered.

Field's loyalists continue to fault Macy's in e-mails and letters to the media. One shopper who asked to remain anonymous was exasperated by her bad experience buying towels at Macy's Web site, but she was impressed by the professional response of Ralph Hughes, former regional vice president otores for Macy's North. On Jan. 2, he was promoted to regional vice president of corporate communications for Federated.

Though Hughes' telephone call and his response were "extremely positive" and "exemplary," the shopper said Macy's will have to work hard to improve its online experience, but she added she would shop again at Macy's.

"I'm not angry at Field's," she said.

sguy@suntimes.com

WHAT'S NEW AT MACY'S

Macy's has new initiatives in the works:
• • The Macy's store at Oak Brook's Oakbrook Center will get a major overhaul, an informed source said. A Macy's spokeswoman said it's too soon to talk about any changes.
• • Macy's is moving ahead with plans to expand celebrity chef Rick Bayless' quick-service eatery, Frontera Fresco, which sells tamales, tortas and quesadillas. It will open inside Macy's stores at Oak Brook and in Sacramento and San Francisco, Calif., within the next year or so, Bayless said.
• • Frango Mints, a Field's favorite, will get its own cookbook, featuring recipes that use the confection. The Frango Cookbook: Simple Recipes and Sweet Ideas, will be sold starting this spring at 200 Macy's stores.

Sandra Guy

How retailer polls customers

January 10, 2007

BY SANDRA GUY Business Reporter

Macy's on State Street scored 78 of a possible 100 in a shopper survey released exclusively to the Sun-Times, putting it in the top 10 stores in customer satisfaction in Macy's North division. Macy's goal is to score 80.

The survey was sent at random to shoppers who had used a store credit card to buy merchandise from last spring through mid-December.

The Macy's North division, encompassing the 61 former Marshall Field's stores in eight states, sends about 250 of the random surveys each day, and had received 1,500 survey responses as of Dec. 16.

Though the Field's store wasn't transformed into Macy's until Sept. 9, the scores did not drop after the transition, said Amy Hanson, vice chairwoman of administration at Macy's North in Minneapolis, where she oversees the Field's regional division's finances and operations.

The survey asked customers to rate the store on their shopping experience; whether the store was "clean, neat and easy to shop," and whether salespeople were courteous and respectful. Each factor is rated on a scale from "disappointing" (zero) to "satisfactory" (50) to "very good" (75) to "outstanding" (100).

The Macy's customer survey program asks shoppers to provide feedback in two ways: the random survey, and via Web sites for Macy's [Macys.com/tellus] and Federated [fds.com, under the heading "Tell us what you think"]. Macy's North received more than 4,800 responses online through mid-December.

Each sales receipt includes the URL of Macy's Web site, and salespeople are supposed to circle it, sign the receipt, and ask shoppers to share their comments. Store managers are expected to respond to Web postings within 72 hours.

Meanwhile, Macy's and its owner, Federated Department Stores of Cincinnati, continue to use an independent company to conduct focus groups to get shoppers' opinions face-to-face, Macy's spokeswoman Jennifer McNamara said. Macy's held a focus group after the Sept. 9 name change, and will hold another early this year.

Chicagoan to run local Macy's

Linda Piepho, the new Macy's North vice president who'll run the State Street store (left), greets an employee Tuesday at Macy's on State.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)

Onetime Lord & Taylor exec assigned to former Field's

January 3, 2007

BY CHERYL V. JACKSON Business Reporter

Macy's has tapped a Chicago-bred retailing veteran to run the former Marshall Field's operations, including the State Street store.

Former Lord & Taylor executive Linda Piepho will become vice president of Macy's North's and store manager of the State Street location Feb. 9.

She'll replace Ralph Hughes, who is being promoted to the newly created Chicago-based post of regional vice president of corporate communication for Macy's parent Federated Department Stores Inc. Federated bought Marshall Field's stores in 2005 and converted them to the Macy's brand.

In the new job, Hughes will represent Federated and Macy's in the Chicago area through community and government relations, community giving and supplier diversity efforts.

Hughes said of the move, "It's designed to really strengthen our leadership team here in Chicago. Our business in Chicago is really important, and the transition is important. It's an opportunity for me to work more outside the store, and allow Linda to take on operations of the store internally."

The 24,000 Macy's employees whom long-time Chicago resident Piepho will oversee might want to know that her name is pronounced "pea-foe." At Lord & Taylor, she oversaw about 600 associates.

Piepho had been with Lord & Taylor for 23 years, starting as a sales associate, working a variety of management positions in Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis, and serving as vice president and general manager of Lord & Taylor at Water Tower Place. Most recently she held the same title at the Fifth Avenue store in New York.

As a college student, Piepho's mother worked part time at the Marshall Field's store on State Street, selling dolls and working in shopper services.

"I walked in the store and said, 'Oh, My God. How lucky am I to be coming home to run this facility?' " she said. "There's a huge affinity for the State Street location."

She attended Evanston Township High School, and in 1983 graduated from Carroll College in Wisconsin, where she studied education and communications.

Hughes has worked at Marshall Field's since 1992, serving as regional director of stores and store manager for various stores and divisions. He also was vice president and general manager for Federated's Rich's Atlanta, and vice president of merchandise management for the May Department Stores Co. in Florida.

Macy's operates in seven regional retail divisions, among them the Minneapolis-based Macy's North with its 63 stores, including 61 former Field's locations.

cjackson@suntimes.com

...and I have some bad news about the Tooth Fairy too

Macy's reaching out to lure former Field's shoppers

By Sandra Jones
Tribune staff reporter

December 13, 2006

Macy's North is on the hunt for former Marshall Field's shoppers.

The Minneapolis-based division of Federated Department Stores Inc. is making phone calls, mailing letters, handing out $10 coupons and sending direct mail literature to customers who have not been shopping at the department store since it became Macy's.

"We're trying to find the people that were customers and didn't come back," said Frank Guzzetta, chairman of Macy's North division, in an interview. "That's a major strategy."

The division, comprising about 60 former Marshall Field's stores, has had a rough time since Macy's took over in September. The name change, a flood of unfamiliar merchandise and a shift in promotions have taken a toll on sales.

Shares of parent Federated, based in New York and Cincinnati, have tumbled 16 percent since late October to $38 as word spread of disappointing sales at the 400-plus stores, including Field's, that Federated purchased from May Department Stores Co. last year and converted to Macy's in September.

In the past two weeks two Wall Street analysts downgraded the stock to "hold" or "neutral," citing the drag the former May stores, which represent about half the company, are having on the total 836-store operation.

Banc of America Securities analyst Dana Cohen estimates that sales at the former May stores have declined between 7 percent and 11 percent from the year-ago period since the September conversion and fell 11 percent in November. The reason: Federated's move to quickly change the roughly dozen department store chains it acquired into Macy's jarred the customer, particularly in the Midwest, where Macy's is not well known.

"The key issue we are facing is that management miscalculated the impact of these changes and, potentially, the pace required to successfully execute them without seeing a big drop-off in the business," Cohen wrote in a report Monday.

Cohen predicts that problems related to the Macy's conversion will dog the retailer into next spring. She expects its strategy will eventually succeed.

Federated Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Lundgren is out to revive the department store as a place to shop. One chief reason for operating the giant chain under one banner, rather than a dozen nameplates, is to save money on advertising and marketing by running the same commercials and circulars nationwide.

While Macy's has kicked off its national campaign, it still needs to send separate messages to shoppers in the upper Midwest, where Macy's is new in town.

That's why Guzzetta is running a series of 17 newspaper ads in its three major markets--Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis--aimed at reminding shoppers that Macy's still carries many of the items formerly found at Field's. The ads, running from Nov. 26 through Dec. 24, highlight separate products such as Waterford crystal, Dooney & Bourke handbags, Polo by Ralph Lauren and Frangos.

"We have a lot of autonomy," Guzzetta added. "The reason the division was created is so that we can stay close to the customer. We've developed a strategy of winning our customers back one at a time and making them understand who we are."

Guzzetta declined to comment specifically on sales, but said that when an area in the store is having trouble, he tracks down customers that used to shop there and seeks feedback.

Indeed, he has had an ongoing e-mail dialogue with one former Field's shopper who refuses to set foot in the store because he thinks it has changed too much.

"I said to him, `I hope you'll break down and buy something,'" Guzzetta said.

Retail consultant Keven Wilder predicts that shoppers have short memories and will eventually forget about the upheaval of Macy's first year in Chicago. But it is too late to do much about this holiday season, she said. Most retailers generate one-third of their sales during the holidays.

"They've made their decision," said Wilder. "They're going to have to ride it out. If Macy's can take a longer view and pack the store with fabulous merchandise, people will come back."

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smjones@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Federated sells bridal unit

Firms Split Bridal and Tux Business

By Cotten Timberlake and Dana Cimilluca
Bloomberg News

November 17, 2006, 10:20 AM CST

Federated Department Stores Inc., the second-largest U.S. department-store company, agreed to sell its bridal division in two separate transactions for a total of $850 million.

Buyout firm Leonard Green & Partners LP will acquire 269 David's Bridal wedding gown stores, as well as 10 Priscilla of Boston locations, for about $750 million, Federated said today in a statement. Men's Wearhouse Inc. is buying 511 After Hours Formalwear tuxedo stores for $100 million.

Federated decided to sell the unit to concentrate on its more than 800 Macy's stores. The company acquired the bridal chains through the $11 billion takeover of May Department Stores Co. last year. The Cincinnati-based company converted 400 former May stores to the Macy's name in September.

``It certainly helps Federated move towards the next step of the integration process,'' said Arun Daniel, an analyst with New York-based ING Investments LLC, which manages $40 billion in assets including Federated shares. The value of the deal was in line with investor expectations, he said.

Federated missed its own deadline to announce an agreement by August after putting the stores on the auction block more than a year ago. The company said it expects to complete the transactions in the first quarter of next year.

The Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based bridal division had sales of $704 million in 2004, the most recent year available. Federated didn't release sales figures today. After Hours is the biggest U.S. formalwear chain.

Federated, which also owns 37 Bloomingdale's stores, rose 6 cents to $42.05 at 9:45 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Before today, it rallied 27 percent this year, more than double the 12 percent gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Private-equity firms have agreed to buy about 67 U.S. retailers and restaurant companies so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

In the biggest deal, Michaels Stores Inc. agreed in June to a $6 billion buyout by Bain Capital LLC and Blackstone Group LP. Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group Inc. was bought a year ago for $5.1 billion by Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus LLC.

Federated sold May's Lord & Taylor division to a group of investors including Apollo Real Estate Advisors LP for $1.2 billion in October.

Federated has been using the proceeds of asset sales, including the disposal of its credit-card accounts to Citigroup Inc., to repay debt incurred in the May acquisition and to repurchase shares.

The sales are part of a consolidation push in the department-store industry that's been driven by sluggish sales. Saks Inc. in September sold its 38-store Parisian chain to Belk Inc., which had bought its Proffitt's and McRae's chains in July 2005.

Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Vornado Realty Trust agreed to buy Toys ``R'' Us for $6.6 billion in March 2005.

Credit Suisse and Banc of America Securities LLC advised Federated on the bridal-business sale.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune