I hate to see jobs lost, but goodness it does not look like Macy’s employed many in their stores… Can never find an SA when I need to!
Alas, I hope ours will not be shuttered. They always have a great dress selection. Our Macy’s is in a mall co-anchored with two other stores I’d rather see gone: Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s.
The Macy’s department organization is awful. If you want a pair of jeans, you need to search at least six or seven different parts of the store.
If you want dresses…ditto. They are all over the place.
It’s a free for all in terms of help. If you find a sales associate, and ask for a dress in a different size…the best you get is them looking it up on their computer…and telling you “yes,me have a size 8.”
Then YOU get to search for it if you are so inclined.
Honestly, I don’t need a lot of help,of the place is organized…but Macy’s…is not.
I hate jobs being lost as well. The stores around here were G. Fox stores, then Filenes, now Macy’s.
With each new iteration they have gone down hill.
Walking into a store like Macy’s makes me appreciate the old fashioned department store we had near where I live in NJ, Epstein’s. It was family run, and it was the kind of place where the people had worked there for years, and if you were looking for something you could find it with their help, and it was usually high quality stuff. They were more expensive than Macy’s for example, but you could get good things there. Alas, it fell victim to the times, the family sold out the location the store was in to a developer, now there is a condo building with all the usual kinds of stores you find in a place like that, chic restaurants and bars and upscale boutiques.
We have 2 Macy’s in our town. One was originally a Broadway and the other a Robinson’s May. One has better merchandise and also appears to have more sales people. The one near my house is pathetic, I only go there id I need bedding.
We also have a Sears which is also a store I avoid. Our Nordstrom isn’t great either. They have some good sales staff but the inventory is low. I feel sorry for the sales associates who work on commission because it is hard to sell when you don’t have a lot of inventory.
It is sad but it is much easier to shop online. My D needed a swim suit top. She looked in several stores in her area and the selection was poor. She was looking for a top that would stay on during water sports. She consider driving an hour to another area to look at a few more stores when I suggested Zappos. She looked, I ordered 5 tops at 2:00 pm, she had them by the next afternoon. Tried them on, picked 2 and sent the rest back. Free shipping, free returns and most of all quick service with plenty of selection.
@MomofWildChild , I invite you to visit my town. While we don’t have a Macy’s, I can never find a parking spot near high end, budget or middle of the road stores. I don’t see any of the “pulling back” that you see. Traffic just gets worse and more and more shops and restaurants are opening.
Dragonmom- I’m sure there are pockets where consumers are spending away. I assure you that as an executive in the retail industry, I get daily reports on spending and earnings reports across the industry. TJ Max and the dollar stores had good 2nd quarters. The rest of retail did not. Traffic doesn’t indicate spending- and neither does the opening of new stores.
It’s clear the heyday of department stores is over. Some of that is the rise of fast fashion and the proliferation of other stores like AnnTaylor, Banana Republic etc. With people buying more and more cheaply made clothing they don’t need the knowledgable sales person to recommend investment pieces.
I live a few miles from the second largest (soon to be largest) indoor mall in the US. So some indoor malls are still successful. It has a Macy’s but I don’t like to go there for all the reasons mentiined plus the ridiculous coupon/discount game they make you play. It’s impossible to figure out the price except that no one ever pays the sticker price!
I prefer Lord and Taylor. I love Nordstrom service and shoes, but I still rarely find clothing that fits my fashion need for some reason.
Macy’s took over my beloved Strawbridges and Wanamakers. Hard to forgive that. 
We were coming down to crunch time on my mom’s MOB dress before my wedding and she was freaking out. We went to Macy’s because there aren’t too many places around where she lives that are reasonably priced. She could not find a single dress that she liked because they were spread all over the store.
She was on the verge of a breakdown and I’m useless in shopping so I tracked down a worker. I finally did (took me wayy too long) and she was actually a great help. My mom found 2 beautiful dresses within our price range. I would never go there again though.
MoWC, thanks. It’s easy to only see our town. The biggest change is that around here many of my friends are no longer spending at big malls They are visiting the local edifices of upscale shops ( Talbots, Williams Sonoma, etc) or the off brand stores (steinmart, TJzmax, HomeGoods, etc) or shopping online.
since this is your job, and I’m just watching where I can find a parking spot, what do you foresee?
How much do you think online sales are changing retail?
And I admit to being guilty of another one who visits Eddie Bauer, finds the pants I want but they aren’t on sale, and goes home and orders them 30% off next month. I’m afraid that in 2040 we will only be able to get stuff online from Amazon and then we will no longer be able to judge quality. And we will have only ourselves to blame.
Maybe this should be a new thread…
ECommerce has clearly hurt brick and mortar stores, but most top retailers have online platforms and even that couldn’t pull out 2nd quarter. The industry’s hope is that if fall and winter have normal seasonal weather that consumers will spend, but the upcoming election is affecting things quite a bit. I was at a meeting a few weeks ago at JC Penney’s HQ and they have a fraction of the employees they had 10 years ago. They have a huge campus and want to sublet a big part of it.
We had. HUGE JC Penney warehouse in CT for a long while…that also had a fun seconds store. The whole thing got shuttered at least 15 years ago.
We have seen some small independent retail stores just close. My state has a lot of small towns…the small local businesses either have to be a niche of some sort…or they just close.
The smaller strip malls are losing businesses too.
Sears at our largest mall, Ala Moana gave up its store a while back. It was one of the anchors but was making way for Bloomingdale’s (where I never see anyone buying anything). I haven’t spent a dime there.
D and her friends were fascinated by the Bloomie’s upscale dressing rooms which had adjustable lighting that you could change AND you could charge your phone or other electronics there too. None of them liked the clothing either.
That mall has beome VERY upscale, so local residents rarely go there any more–I believe they stick with online and perhaps neighorhood malls. I don’t even know all the stores at the mega-mall any more and parking is awful.
Our local Macy’s is well organized, well staffed and has plenty of inventory. Maybe because it is small. I hope it’s not going to close.
At what point does the “enough” movement, like the Japanese minimalist closet gurus, influence sales?
If you need to get rid of your stuff, buying new is going to not be a growth sector.
I don’t think people are buying less, they are just buying more at specialty stores and online. When my mother dragged me shopping with her to get curtains, we went to Macy’s. Bedspreads? Macy’s. There weren’t so many discount stores, linen stores, etc. I don’t remember Marshall’s showing up until the 80’s. The Mall was the place to go and the anchor stores were the busiest places.
I will miss those glamorous old department stores. Most of them are gone already but big cities still have some. The fancy window displays, the multiple floors, the holiday decorations - it was a special experience. I remember once going to every floor at the Macy’s in Herald Square, I think there are 11, and the escalator got more and more rickety the higher you went. Still, it was great to be in the largest department store in the world. And really fun to visit large, glamorous department stores in other cities and other countries.
I’m surprised that none of my fellow Southern Californians has mentioned Bullock’s. That was such a great department store in my youth. I remember going to the Pasadena Bullock’s with my grandmother and having lunch in the tea room and seeing all of the models walking around wearing the latest fashions. And the oh-so-glamorous Bullock’s Wilshire on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles was a destination worthy of a drive. I still remember the nut bread and cream cheese in that tea room.
Macy’s took over the Bullock’s stores, along with the Broadway and Robinson’s. The iconic Bullock’s Wilshire building was bought by a local law school (!!)
I can’t remember if Macy’s also took over the I. Magnin’s, the most glamorous department store of my youth. The flagship store in LA was in Beverly Hills on Wilshire at Rodeo Drive. It is now a Barney’s, not a Macy’s, but I think Macy’s took over the chain.
Department stores are a big part of my childhood memories and each brand had a distinctive personality. A family friend was a Santa Claus at our local Broadway, and I always thought of that chain as a little declasse, given that they couldn’t induce the real dude to come to their department store. The real Santa Claus was over there at the Bullock’s Wilshire, which constituted a very prime endorsement to my six-year-old self.
“At what point does the “enough” movement, like the Japanese minimalist closet gurus, influence sales?
If you need to get rid of your stuff, buying new is going to not be a growth sector.”
Maybe the Japanese minimalist movement will induce everyone to replace their entire wardrobe with three Issey Miyake dresses or Yohji Yamamoto suits. That would certainly provide a boost to the economy!
I did have the fortune, while barely any time, to go to Macy’s in midtown Manhattan. Is that the one on Herald Square?
Macy’s is very poorly organized. But they have great sales if you have all day to find the deals. I hope the one by me doesn’t close.