希尔斯和彭尼百货店铺减少，梅西百货该如何应对

西尔斯百货（Sears）正处于破产保护中，彭尼百货（JC Penney）再次陷入困境，面对这种状况，梅西百货（Macy’s）不得不重新考虑在商场里只剩自家店铺苦苦支撑的情况下如何运营。

西尔斯上个月申请破产保护，宣布又有一批店铺要统一关闭；今年早些时候，邦顿百货（Bon-Ton）停业清盘；与此同时，彭尼百货尽管已经在2017年关闭了140家业绩不佳的店铺，营业状况却仍然止步不前。在一些商场里，上述连锁品牌均已倒闭，虽然梅西百货仍然开门迎客，商场却已经变成了实际意义上的鬼城：虽然这么说听起来违反直觉，但商城里重要竞争对手的消失对梅西百货造成了负面影响，因为这些连锁品牌的退场意味着商场整体客流量的减少。

为了解决这个问题，梅西百货于上周三表示，公司正在将旗下600多家商店按照三个层次进行分级，以此来确定他们将获得多少投资。通常情况下，如果一家店铺所在商场或购物中心业绩疲软，其它连锁百货品牌都已退场只有梅西百货仍在坚持的话，这类店铺会被划入所谓的“社区”商店集合。

具体而言，这意味着如果此类店铺想改善照明、地板硬件或固定装置，仍然能获得投资，但规模要比公司其它店铺小得多。这么做的考虑是，尽管这些店铺表现一般，却仍然有利可图，值得保留。但它们所在的购物中心状态不佳，公司不应该扩大店铺规模或者花更多钱。

“我们确实感受到了，在一些购物中心里，我们变成了唯一能撑起这个商场的连锁百货，这也是我们发展社区战略的起源。”梅西百货的首席执行官杰夫·根内特告诉本刊。根内特说：“人们来这些社区商店往往是为了买些日常用品，而不是探寻新时尚，如果客户想赶时髦，他们会去更高端的梅西商店。”根内特说。社区商店的规模将被缩减20%，员工数量也将减少。

但是，根内特说，这类商店仍然要达到一定的标准。社区商店也将提供自助结账服务，会有自助服务鞋品区。最重要的是，这些商店对梅西百货继续发展眼下最炙手可热的电子商务业务至关重要，它们将像所有商店一样，提供在线订单提货和退货处理服务。

“可能商场里的其它店铺没有足够的理由吸引顾客去，所以我们必须给他们足够的理由来我们的店里。”根内特说。

下一层级是梅西百货所谓的“磁铁”商店，它们将获得更多投资。这些商店中已经有大约50家加入了梅西百货的“增长50”（“Growth50”）项目，该项目通过在特定商店测试新的营销和展示创意来快速了解哪种方式效果好、值得推广到更多的商店。这些商店能够获得投资进行更复杂的装修，有更多人手，商品种类更丰富，很多商店还会出售更高端的产品。梅西百货已经在一些店铺测试了用储物柜存放提取在线订购商品的做法。2019年还将有100家梅西享受这种待遇。

梅西百货最顶级的店铺包括位于曼哈顿面积达百万平方英尺的先锋广场店（Macy’s Herald Square）以及十个像旧金山联合广场店（Union Square）一样规模的店铺。

把商店做小的想法正在零售业兴起。例如，科尔氏百货公司（Kohl’s）的很多店铺也在减少库存，整理店面避免杂乱，开辟空间转租给其他像杂货店一样的零售商店，因为这些商店可以吸引更多客流。诺德斯特龙（Nordstrom）和塔吉特（Target）公司也和其它一些品牌一样，正在推出面积更小的店铺。

经常因为店面杂乱受到抨击的梅西百货已经有所进步：GlobalData Retail公司在上周三的一份研究报告中表示，其研究表明67％的客户认为梅西百货的购物体验“好或非常好”，而一年前仅为59%。

这也解释了为什么梅西百货似乎获得了动力实现反弹增长。根据Consensus Metrix的数据，这家百货连锁店称公司第三季度可比销售额增长3.1％，已经实现连续四个季度的增长，远高于华尔街预测的2.2％增长。随着一年中最重要的节日即将来临，梅西百货提高了自己的全年预测数据，根内特说梅西百货已经准备好迎接这个节日了。（财富中文网）

译者：Agatha

With Sears now in bankruptcy protection and J.C. Penney struggling again, Macy’s is being forced to rethink how it operates its stores in the malls it co-anchors with those rivals.

Sears filed for bankruptcy protection last month, announcing yet another round of store closings en masse, and Bon-Ton liquidated earlier this year, while Penney is struggling to tread water despite shuttering 140 weak stores in 2017. The malls that those chains left but where Macy’s still has a store have practically become ghost towns: while counterintuitive, the disappearance of rival retailers that anchor a mall hurts Macy’s since it means less overall shopper traffic.

To address that problem, Macy’s on last Wednesday said it was creating a three-tier classification of its 600-plus stores that determines how much investment they will get. Stores in weak malls and centers where Macy’s is the last department store standing will typically be part of the subset designated as “neighborhood” stores by the company.

Concretely that means they will continue to get investments like better lighting, flooring and fixtures, but on a much more modest scale than other Macy’s locations. The idea is that those stores—while under-performing—are nonetheless profitable and worth keeping. But the state of the malls they inhabit mean Macy’s shouldn’t warrant anything more extensive or lavish.

“We are experiencing [that trend] at our malls where we’re the only anchor left and that has really informed our neighborhood store strategy,” Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette told Fortune. “Such stores are typically used for trips to replenish basics rather than explore and look for new fashion, which customers do by going to a better Macy’s,” Gennette said. The neighborhood stores will be shrunk in size by about 20% and have fewer staff.

Still, Gennette says that the stores still have to be up to a certain standard. Such neighborhood stores will include self-service checkout and self-serve shoe sections. Crucially these stores are key to supporting Macy’s red-hot e-commerce growth and will offer online order pickup and returns handling like all stores do,

“There might not be enough reason to come to the balance of the mall so you’ve got to give them enough reasons to come to your store,” Gennette said.

Stores in the next tier up, Macy’s so-called “magnet” stores, will get a lot more investment. Some 50 of those stores have been part of Macy’s “Growth50” project, where it has tested new merchandising and presentation ideas at specific stores to quickly see what works and is worth rolling out to more stores. Those stores will get more involved facelifts, more staffing, offer a wider variety of merchandise, including in many stores, more high-end merchandise. At some locations, Macy’s has tested things like lockers to retrieve online orders. Another 100 Macy’s will get that treatment in 2019.

The highest tier stores includes Macy’s Herald Square million-square-foot store in Manhattan and ten more locations like Union Square in San Francisco.

The idea of smaller stores is one that is growing in retail. Kohl’s, for one, is also reducing the inventory at many stores to de-clutter them and down the line, carve out space to sublet to other retailers like grocers that generate frequent store visits. Nordstrom and Target are among the others rolling out smaller locations.

Macy’s, often slammed for store clutter, is already showing signs of progress: In a research note on last Wednesday, GlobalData Retail said that its research found that 67% of customers this rated shopping at Macy’s as “good or very good,” up from 59% a year ago.

That helps explain why Macy’s rebound seems to gaining steam. The department store chain reported that comparable sales rose 3.1% in the third quarter, the fourth quarter of growth in a row and well above Wall Street forecasts for 2.2% growth, according to Consensus Metrix. And it raised its full year forecast just as the crucial holiday is getting underway, one for which Gennette said Macy’s is ready.