Mike Sunderland

NOSTALGIC RETAIL SERIES: 20 - KB TOYS KB Toys was founded in 1922 as Kaufman Brothers, a wholesale candy store.Kaufman Brothers opened a wholesale toy store in 1946. The toy business was an acquisition from a candy client who could not pay its outstanding debts. The retailer ended its candy wholesale business two years later to to focus on toys. Retail sales began in 1973 as the company moved away from wholesaling to become a mall-based toy retailer, using the name Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby. In 1981, Melville Corporation purchased the 210 store Kay-Bee chain from the Kaufman family for $64.2M. The retailer and Melville Corporation went through a series of acquisitions in the 1980s and early 1990s causing a major restructuring and closing of 250 underperforming stores in the new portfolio. In 1996, Kay-Bee was sold to Consolidated Stores Corporation (now known as Big Lots) for $315M. By 1999, the company operated 1,324 stores and was the second-largest toy retailer in the U.S.. It also changed its name to KB Toys that same year. In 2000, Bain Capital entered the picture after Consolidated Stores could not create a profitable company and purchased KB Toys for $305M (notice we are going in the wrong direction!) KB Toys declared bankruptcy in both 2004 and 2008 due to competition, expensive mall rent structures and poor sales. It officially threw in the towel in February, 2009. closing all 461 stores (this from a peak of over 1,300 stores). Toys "R" Us acquired the remains of K·B Toys (website, trademarks, and intellectual property rights). "Strategic Marks, a company that buys and revives defunct brands, purchased the brand in 2016, and planned to open new stores using the name beginning in 2019; plans for this revival, however, were cancelled due to a lack of funding. As of 2020, all trademarks for K·B Toys have been abandoned by Strategic Marks and is currently not used by any company." [Wikipedia] Missed any posts in the series? Click here for the website with the full list: https://bit.ly/3YxvVfR #nostalgicretail hashtag#retail hashtag#shopping hashtag#brands hashtag#retailrealestate

18

2 Comments

The attached read reviews the most common reasons for retail display issues in the field: #displays, #retail, #merchandising https://lnkd.in/gVAFqr_i

3

Sales dipped and profits were lower for Dillard’s, whose CEO expressed disappointment in the Little Rock-based retailer’s performance. Dillard’s reported Thursday (Aug. 15) revenue of $1.514 billion in the second quarter compared to $1.597 billion in last year’s second quarter. Analysts projected second-quarter revenue at $1.53 billion. #retailsales #earningsreport #departmentstores

1

I enjoyed speaking with Larry Getlen about the trend for retailers opening smaller stores. It’s not just large department stores opening smaller format stores, but that is certainly popular. Also, available locations close to both suburban and urban consumers are tight, especially in more high-traffic lifestyle centers. There are numerous advantages and opportunities for retailers in smaller stores to more effectively manage the assortment, inventory, staffing, and last but certainly not least, the consumer experience. #retail #stores

23

1 Comment

I keep hearing about how “brick and mortar retail is in trouble.” The numbers tell a different story. This year alone, there are over 1,000 stores opening across the U.S., with brands like TJ Maxx, Dollar Tree Stores, Dollar General, and Warby Parker leading the charge. This is unprecedented growth. And it’s a testament to the evolving retail landscape. But there’s a catch. Overall, most retailers today operate fewer stores due to the high costs. The stores that are around now serve multiple roles, including integrating both online and offline shopping experiences. Whether starting in-store and shipping home or ordering online and picking up in-store, it's all about meeting the customer where they are. Despite having fewer and smaller stores, the stakes are higher than ever for retailers. When customers visit a store today, they are serious about their intent. They're there to learn, fix, exchange, or buy something specific. If you miss the opportunity to serve them properly, you lose that sale—and likely won't get a second chance. This is especially critical for specialty stores—hardware, home improvement, electronics, books—where customers come in with a clear purpose. Failing to engage and assist them effectively means losing them to a competitor. In a world where retail is both online and offline, ensuring that every in-store interaction is handled perfectly is essential. It's about making the most of each moment, because you might not get another chance.

151

29 Comments

With the 8.1% sales decline accelerating over the last quarter and with losses growing on the bottom line, JCPenney has started its new fiscal year on a sour note. Unfortunately, the market has been soft which has not helped revenue, but as it is only part way through its reinvention program JC Penney also isn’t firmly on the front foot. Lower credit income is also unhelpful, with revenues here down by 20.5 over last year.   The changes JCP has been making to some stores and to assortments seem to be delivering, with refurbished shops performing better and some categories like womenswear producing stronger numbers. Sadly, these things are not yet sufficiently developed or widespread enough to offset staleness in the balance of the business. Basically, there is still a lot of work to do to put JCP on a more stable footing.   Fortunately for JCPenney, it is well financed and has a strong financial partner in its owners. As such, management won’t lose too much sleep over being in the red. However, the company needs to produce some better results across the remainder of this fiscal to prove its strategy is working. It was great to chat with Daphne Howland of Retail Dive about the latest Q1 numbers - link to article in the comments. #retail #retailnews #departmentstores #trading #apparel

67

15 Comments

Great Issue from MMR!

6

Aloha Friday! 🤙🏼 Here are some interesting stories from the world of retail for Friday, May 24: 👖 Shares of Ross Stores, Inc. rallied in extended trading Thursday after the discount clothing chain raised its full-year profit forecast, even as higher prices continue to hit its low- to middle-income shoppers. 👕 Ralph Lauren ended its fiscal year on an upbeat note with earnings and revenue that beat expectations as its average unit prices continued to rise. Ralph Lauren’s revenue increased 2% to $1.568 billion. 🥫 Ahold Delhaize has announced plans to close an undisclosed number of underperforming Stop & Shop grocery stores in the US this year. The closures are part of an evaluation of the overall portfolio. 🏠 Williams-Sonoma, Inc. CEO Laura Alber has explained she's handling a tough housing market. The chain is leaning into what it calls easy updates, or things consumers can do for their homes when they’re not moving. 📦 Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is worried about the “negative consequences” of regulating big businesses, including the Seattle-based tech and e-commerce conglomerate, he told shareholders at Amazon’s annual meeting. 🥩 Lidl US is preparing to overhaul its meat department in time for Independence Day, according to a top company official. It also plans to launch a new private label for packaged meats. 👚 The chief executive and board of Gildan Activewear have resigned, following hedge fund Browning West's successful proxy campaign. New board members intend to reinstate company founder Glenn Chamandy as CEO. 🧴 Joining other brands in Amazon’s beauty hub, skin care brand Kiehl’s has launched its products in the Amazon Premium Beauty store. Kiehl’s will have a dedicated digital storefront within the Amazon Premium Beauty section. 🇨🇳 China's online retail sales have continued to grow steadily in the first four months of 2024. According to official data from the Ministry of Commerce, online retail sales increased 11.5% year-over-year to 4.41tn yuan ($620.52bn). 🏬 Seattle’s Pacific Place mall sells at deep discount. The mall sold for $66.75 million, well below its 2014 sale price of $271 million. Its nearly 1,200-stall garage sold for $21.5 million, down from $87 million in 2016. 🍪 Mondelēz International, the maker of Oreo, has been fined €337.5 million ($366 million) for hindering the trade of chocolate, cookies and coffee between European Union countries in order to keep prices high. ☕️ Florida's top legal officer on Wednesday said the state will investigate Starbucks, the multinational chain of coffeehouses, for its diversity, equity and inclusion practices. 🎫 In a groundbreaking antitrust lawsuit that threatens to upend the way concertgoers pay for tickets, the US government and dozens of states sued Live Nation on Thursday in a bid to split up the company. #retail #retailnews #economy #DailyRetailNews

34

2 Comments

It’s been another rough year at U.S. department stores so far, at least for those making their financial filings public. Several of them — public and private — have embarked on turnarounds or are contemplating changes that could be a final test of a challenged retail model. #departmentstores #retailstrategy #turnaroundstrategy #retailsales

2

Cool Sh*t Alert! Want to really understand why Ownit AI was the talk of CommerceNext and why they opened the show to a packed house alongside Ulta Beauty? Then look no further than the below. #retail #retailing #grocery #conveniencestores #cpg #branding #advertisingandmarketing #onlineshopping #shoppingandtheretailindustry #fashionretail #luxuryretail #beauty #seo #ai

24

4 Comments

Letter to the toy industry: A headline in 10-20 years will read; “The magic has evaporated as indie toy stores melt away.” More closures are coming, less risks are taken, most young people do not want retail careers and Amazon is growing 5-10 percent squeezing out everyone. Yes, hot products extend the cycle for toy stores and The Covid effect was once in a century. But if you understand trends, the ending is clear. What a shame. However, I’m not about to stop trying and implementing new ideas and strategies to create a new local toy space, but it needs to be much different than the small incremental changes we all have made. We will fight to find ways that can increase our value proposition over low prices, same day delivery and millions of products at one’s fingertips. Can’t be done some say and I personally see no real strategic direction from any organization, so why even try? Well when you experience the “magic” for our children (and adults) 6 days a week it’s worth the fight. Our work has begun in earnest. #toys #toyindustry #retail #retailindustry #amazon #games #inventors #brickandmortar

90

17 Comments

NOSTALGIC RETAIL SERIES: 15 - LINENS 'N THINGS "In November 1958, Eugene Wallace Kalkin established a leased-linen department in the New Jersey discount retailer Great Eastern Mills. In August 1970, Great Eastern Mills opened the first Linens 'n Things store in East Brunswick, New Jersey. After a succession of corporate ownership changes and the bankruptcy of Daylin, Inc. in 1975, Kalkin bought seven locations out of bankruptcy and founded an independent parent company, which became Linens 'n Things, Inc.." *[Home Textiles Today]* In 1983, Melville Corporation acquired the 55 unit chain. By 2006, the chain boasted 571 stores in the U.S. and Canada. The company's business strategy was "to offer a broad selection of high quality, brand name home furnishings merchandise at exceptional everyday values, provide superior guest service, and maintain low operating costs."*[The Wayback Machine]* But with a ton of debt from private equity buyouts (I know we have never heard this story before), all Linens 'n Things stores were closed in late 2008. As with many of the retailers in this series, the brand went online only with a relaunch in early 2009 and then shut down their online-only presence in 2018. The rights to the brand were acquired by Retail Ecommerce Ventures in 2020 and the website was relaunched. As of today, it is active with brands of yesteryear showing on the top banner that live on in an online only fashion. Missed any posts in the series? Click here for the website with the full list: https://bit.ly/3YxvVfR #nostalgicretail hashtag#retail hashtag#shopping hashtag#brands hashtag#retailrealestate Photo: By Ildar Sagdejev (Specious) - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://bit.ly/40tAiK6

35

4 Comments

Vendor theft is a huge blind spot. I was working for a retail chain, and I got a tip from a store that a dairy driver was shorting them on milk. I reviewed the video to learn that the driver was indeed shorting shipments. The milk crates were packaged with 4 gallons to a crate. Meanwhile, every 4-pack was missing a gallon of milk! It wasn’t just that store, it was every store the driver delivered too. Typically, when a driver pulls product from a shipment, it's due to breakage or expiration. They are supposed to issue credit to the store. This drive wasn’t doing that.  I started to look at other drivers and found that other drivers were doing the same thing. The dairy vendor allowed me to conduct an interview with the original driver, who admitted he was doing this for years and implicated many other drivers. They were shorting stores and selling to independent retailers that were on the same route and getting paid in cash off the books. As we delved into the reporting and the final tally for what the dairy company owed the retailer was north of $1M! This was before Exception Based Reporting (EBR) software too. We had to manually reviewing shipments, sales, and credits.   It is not as commonly discussed in LP/AP, but theft from DirectStore Delivery (DSD) vendors is very common. IMHO it's a big miss for the industry right now. However, the good news is that modern LP pros have EBR software. With ThinkLP, you can easily monitor DSD sales, delivery receipts, and credits issued to identify and investigate suspect behavior. #lossprevention #assetprotection

60

5 Comments

🌟 New LECHERY Styles Dropped At Anthropologie 🌟: Introducing our best-selling styles at Anthropologie! Our values at LECHERY strongly align with the Anthropologie customer, "women who prioritize self-expression and creativity, women who want to be and look like themselves." That's exactly the type of customer LECHERY has always tried to target -- the unabashed. Anthropologie was founded in 1992 in Wayne, Pennsylvania and now operates 200 stores around the world and is part of the URBN (Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie Group, Free People & Nuuly) portfolio of brands. I remember walking into an Anthropologie store for the first time on the Upper East Side seven years ago and immediately fell in love with their boho-chic inspired collections. At the time, I was broke as hell with several hundred dollars in my bank account, and couldn't afford anything but maybe a couple of hair accessories and a pair of socks. Seven years later, you're able to shop LECHERY at Anthropologie. You can imagine how extra special this moment is for me. If there's anything to take away from this post, it is truly to put your all when it comes to your business and remove everyone and everything that is no longer serving you. xx, Vyra Scher, Founder of LECHERY _____ P.S. - If you liked this post, please hit the like, share, or repost ♻ button! #VyraScher #Founder #LECHERY #LECHERYNewYork #Hosiery #FounderJourney #FounderStories #LinkedIn #LinkedInForCreators #Branding #BrandIdentity #Entrepreneur #EntrepreneurMindset #Anthropologie #URBN #Retail #Retailers

62

18 Comments

Reactivation. As 2024 evolved, my project work shifted. Late in 2023, e-commerce brands contacted me wondering why growth wasn't as robust as it had been ... while at the same time old-school catalog brands were asking me how to trim print expense (for obvious reasons) while still finding ways to grow. As the year progressed, comments from my clients & readers evolved. a) Does my twelve-month buyer file have enough "power" to fuel growth? b) Should I pursue loyalty efforts ... and do I have any great customers to pursue loyalty efforts with? c) I have this huge glut of COVID buyers who are now at four years of recency. Are my reactivation efforts paying off? The reactivation stuff has been really interesting. If there is one (1) huge advantage old-school catalog brands have, it is the ability to send print to a customer who hasn't purchased in, say, twenty-three (23) months. If there is one huge advantage e-commerce-only brands have, it is the ability to personalize reactivation content based on "what" the customer previously purchased. To understand if reactivation matters, we need to perform some research. That is what my "Hillstrom's Playbook" project is ... research and scoring of the 0-48 month buyer file (click on the attached image) to determine if the hard work of properly executing Customer Development and Reactivation efforts pays off (hint - it does). As I always do with new projects, I give my loyal readers and clients first chance to test my code out, at a favorable price. This project costs $24,900 ... but for the next week, it will cost you just $12,900. Act fast! We're at a unique point in Customer Development right now ... all of those COVID buyers are essentially gone now, easy growth is gone, and we're required to do some hard work to convert lapsed buyers into Average/Quality buyer status. Let's get busy! Questions? Thanks, Kevin

17

1 Comment

The best retail story you’ll read these days is a rom-com. A love story between Americans and TJ Maxx & HomeGoods. Actually, a threesome, once you add in the brands, small and big. With most U.S. department stores embarking on ongoing turnarounds, shakeup’s, or contemplating radical changes that could be the final test of a dying retail breed, America’s retail darling – off-price retail – is thriving like never before. Younger consumers are especially drawn to discounters, with the share of spending on value apparel by millennials and Gen Z shoppers up nearly four points in the last year, according to a Bank of America research last month. TJ Maxx, on the other side of this romantic relationship, dressed up to the occasion: what once was a clearance and closeout channel is now a fashion-forward destination, thanks to a very sharp merchandising and buying strategy. And brands - the third partner in the menage a trois - are loving the discretion of an off-line only shopping experience, which protects from brand dilution at a time of online saturation. If you’re looking for a winner in today’s tormented US retail landscape, look no further. You’ve come to the right and fun place. Read more about the irresistible rise of off-price retail in the CNBC article linked below in the comments👇 #departmentstores #retail #fashion #offprice #discounters #omnichannel #merchandising #stores #linkedinpostsbymariopace

16

6 Comments

A timely follow-up to yesterday's post on Dollar General's assortment initiative, today's The Wall Street Journal article confirms more retailers and brands are also reviewing and rationalizing their assortments. Some of this is to curtail inventories, while some of it is simply overdue assortment management. Seasonal and annual assortment strategies should continuously review trends, revenue/margin, and store/channel assortment goals, and plan the the SKU breadth and depth appropriately. Some retailers let the SKU count expand a bit in hopes it will drive revenue, while others lack the appropriate processes and tools. Sometimes less is more. #assortment #planning #inventorymanagement

14

3 Comments

Channels, retailers, consumers. A headline for a Retail Dive article yesterday was "Off-price retailers poised to take even more market share from department stores". Walmart, KMart, 40 years ago were described as department stores. Department stores were meant to be convenient. Department stores are dying, because convenience includes proximity, luxury is shopped in major urban centres, and 3-6 floors of inventory that is slow turning and expensive is a brutal business model to operate. But maybe what matters isn't the name of a channel "Department store". Do people outside of our industry even use words like that? Has your mom or dad ever said "Mass Merchant"? Maybe what matters is that people have needs, brands fulfill those needs, and brands grow when they make themselves available where and when people want to fulfill those needs.

12

1 Comment