Neiman Marcus announced that it will be closing its doors an hour earlier at some of its stores this summer. This is another way the luxury chain is paring back on expenses without compromising the quality of its high class experience. Will it be enough, though? Since same store sales have been off by more than 20% for the past six months, maybe the store hours should be shortened by 20% as well.
Perhaps the Neiman Marcus team could take Sundays off and meet the Chick-Fil-A team for Sunday brunch. There would be no strategic retail value to these meetings, but the Neiman employees might find benefit in a break from the current pressures of luxury retailing, and hanging out with people who have plenty of experience with taking a day of rest every week.
The new Neiman store hours really are not that radical. Other major retailers like Macy’s and Kroger have cut hours at some of their stores this year. Dick’s Sporting Goods has trimmed 30 minutes off both ends of its operating schedule, and the Best Buy team members get an extra hour to party on Fridays and Saturdays because those stores are turning off the lights earlier too. Entire malls are cutting back on hours in order to cut back on expenses.
When was it exactly that Americans found a need to shop for 12 hours a day, seven days a week anyway? Adjusted store hours may be one more way that the retail recession demonstrates to the U.S. retail industry that less can be more.
The topic of closings wouldn’t be complete without mentioning a Houston restaurant named Saute’. Nearly 500 of its fans were notified about the restaurant’s demise through an official announcement made on Twitter. Reportedly, another Houston-area restaurant, Sireneuse Euro Bistro, had blazed that tweet trail in April, announcing its own shutdown via Twitter as well.
Both of these restaurants certainly gave a meaty answer to the foundational Twitter question, “What are you doing?” This may make a good case for retailers with Twitter accounts to learn how to creatively leverage this social media outlet before it’s too late. Finding successful Twitter strategies now might help keep some retail operations off the store closing list later. They’ll never know if they never tweet.
The biggest Chapter 11 story last week was found in the rumors swirling around Eddie Bauer, with many experts and media sources predicting that a filing from the company is imminent. The Chapter 11 filing may never happen, though, if the Wall Street Journal is correct in its speculation that the company or part of its assets might be sold. One of the possible purchasers identified is Gordon Brothers Group, the same company that liquidated both Sharper Image and Linens ‘n Things. That doesn’t really bode well for the future of Eddie Bauer as an ongoing member of the U.S. retail industry. Considering the Gordon Brothers option, claiming a spot on the retail Chapter 11 roster doesn’t seem like such a bad fate for Eddie.
The retail CEO quotable quote of the week belonged to Home Depot’s Frank Blake. When speaking on an investor teleconference about the home improvement company’s performance so far this year he said, “Getting to ‘less bad’ is not the same as getting to recovery.”
Well said, Mr. Blake! That pretty much sums up the state of affairs for most of the U.S. retail industry so far in June.
More Retail Industry Numbers:
Talbots Sells Stores, Neiman Cuts Hours, Eddie Bauer Fuels Chapter 11 RumorsRetail Industry June 1 - 13, 2009: Closings Plus Openings Don't Equal Recovery
By Barbara Farfan, About.com
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