Macy's said yesterday that it plans to close 125 stores over the next three years, roughly 20 percent of its fleet. Macy's also will eliminate some 2,000 corporate jobs, and close a technology office in San Francisco and a headquarters office in Cincinnati - moves that it hopes will generate annual savings in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion, which it wants to plow back into the business.
The CNBC story says that "the department store chain said it plans to exit weaker shopping malls, and instead will shift its focus toward opening smaller-format stores in strip centers … with a focus on growing its off-price business, known as Backstage, expanding outside of the mall and improving online."
Macy’s has closed more than 100 stores over the past five years. Some of the closings announced yesterday already had been made public, such as the downtown Seattle store, which, ironically, is in a building that has been gradually taken over by Amazon.
The CNBC story says that "the department store chain said it plans to exit weaker shopping malls, and instead will shift its focus toward opening smaller-format stores in strip centers … with a focus on growing its off-price business, known as Backstage, expanding outside of the mall and improving online."
Macy’s has closed more than 100 stores over the past five years. Some of the closings announced yesterday already had been made public, such as the downtown Seattle store, which, ironically, is in a building that has been gradually taken over by Amazon.
- KC's View:
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Cutting one's way to prosperity often has been tried, but doesn't usually succeed. So I'm not persuaded by this announcement.
In the end, Macy's future will be decided by whether consumers are persuaded. As a shopper, I'm not wild about its stores … there seems to be a lot of vanilla, and not much in the way of a driving narrative that defines the brand and compels the shopping experience. Now, it may just be that I'm not Macy's target shopper. (I'd bet on that, in fact.) But when I look around a Macy's, I wonder who is.
