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Macy’s CEO Announces Plan To Sell More Shoes
November 15, 2024
Macy’s CEO says he knows that shopping for shoes at the popular department store isn’t fun, so he’ll be implementing changes to make it so.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Tony Spring, chief executive of Macy’s, revealed his plans for what he thinks will turn the proverbial ship around. “We don’t want an endless aisle,” he said. “We want to double down on the bestselling styles.”
Some store display tables now “showcase about 15 pairs of shoes, half of what was previously on view,” according to the WSJ. In total, the shoe departments in these locations now offer around 300 fewer colors and styles.
With eventual plans to implement the improvements across the entire chain of department stores, the new design is a component of Spring’s aim to revamp 50 of the best stores this year. Additional efforts include hiring extra employees for the women’s clothes and handbag areas, as well as for the checkout counters and fitting rooms.
Spring emphasized the importance of small adjustments like this having a significant impact. He noted that the shoe department updates have already led to higher sales, with “more shoes selling at full price.”
In July, due to what it described as uncertain funding, Macy’s, which also owns Bloomingdale’s and the Bluemercury beauty store, terminated negotiations with investors Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management after they tried to take the chain private for $6.9 billion. By adding two directors selected by one of the investors, it avoided a proxy war.
Macy’s Has Been Closing Stores
Similar retooling initiatives have been attempted by previous corporate executives, but the largest department store chain in America has continued to decline. In September, Macy’s announced that it would be closing a total of 55 locations by the end of 2024, as part of the struggling brand’s continuous endeavor to revitalize its operations.
As part of its three-year plan to eliminate 150 outlets, the company had initially planned to close 50 underperforming stores by the end of the year, but it updated that number to 55. Although the closing stores’ locations have not yet been revealed, there is a lot of conjecture that they will include Tampa, Florida’s WestShore Plaza mall, Traverse City, Michigan, and Newington, New Hampshire. According to reports, these stores will close following the winter break.
“The biggest things that have gone wrong at Macy’s are the quality of the stores and the product assortment,” GlobalData Retail analyst Neil Saunders said to The Daily Mail. “And so over the years customers have deserted it, sales have tumbled and store productivity has gone down. All the metrics have gone in the wrong direction.”
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