Home Alone 3
Warren Shoulberg, editorial director for HTT, always seems to have something to say about things.
It’s a Long, Long Way From May to December
It's almost the start of the fourth quarter. Do you know where your customers are?It's got to be a question retailers from one end of the country to the other are asking themselves as they try to figure out what in the world is going on out there.As recently as May, if you asked most store executives about how they were feeling about prospects for the balance of the year, you generally would have... Read More
Comments (4)New Kids on the Block
The move by Lord & Taylor - nee Home Outfitters out of Canada - to open a few home superstore tests in New Jersey over the next few weeks has got to be one of the most interesting developments on the retail scene in quite some time.Home Outfitters, owned by the same Hudson's Bay parent company as Lord & Taylor (they were the guys who also bought Fortunoff out of bankruptcy and ended up liquidating... Read More
Comments (2)What's a Licensee To Do?
Let me say first, I think brands are the salvation of consumer products like home furnishings and if that brand just happens to be a licensed one, secured from outside the industry, all the better. That said, sometimes the business model of using a brand name based on an actual human being can backfire ... and sometimes it can backfire really badly.It's quite possible we may be seeing the latest e... Read More
Comments (8)Foreign Affairs
As the home textiles industry grapples with the complexities of international sourcing and supply chain management issues stretching half way around the globe, just imagine for a minute if things had worked out differently.Just imagine, if you will, what would have happened if the giant textiles mills that dominated the industry during the 1990s - West Point, J.P. Stevens, Springs, Fieldcrest Cann... Read More
Comments (2)Of Mice and Merchants
OK, so I'm getting a little mixed up with the literary metaphors here, but go with me on this one, will you?Because this is when things are going to start to get really interesting.Over the next 45 days, stores selling home textiles will begin to put on their shelves the merchandise they bought late last year and in early 2011 ...the merchandise made with cotton that cost about the same as plutoni... Read More
Comments (1)The New Texas Ranger
Ron Johnson. J.C. Penney. Ron Johnson. J.C. Penney. Johnson. Penney. I just have to let that sink in a little bit.By the time you read this, the big news about Ron Johnson, the great Apple Retail Superstar, joining J.C. Penney, the not-so-great retail fading star, will be a week old. But as I write this, I just keep saying to myself: Ron Johnson. J.C. Penney.This may not be the most amazing and un... Read More
Comments (2)The Summer of Disconnect
I think it was the former merchandise manager for Stern's, maybe you remember him - Billy Shakespeare - who said it and boy, was he ever right.Now, indeed, is the summer our disconnect.For the second straight year, we have pinned all our hopes on the back half of the year, starting with the summer months, to save our collective economic butts and salvage yet another tough fiscal situation. But fo... Read More
Comments (2)Chinatowns
There are two Chinatowns when it comes to the relationship between the country of China and the home textiles industry.The first Chinatown is the one everyone knows best. It's the one with only one-way streets, all running from China to the U.S., that supplies a huge chunk of the products American retailers sell and American consumers buy.This is a place everyone is pretty comfortable with at thi... Read More
Comments (3)Cry Me a River
Poor dumb old Amazon: All they do is keep investing in the company and not worrying so much about short-term quarterly results. What's the matter with them?In reporting its numbers a couple of week ago, the giant online retailer announced a 33% drop in its profits, even as revenue jumped by 38%. The reason for the decline on the bottom line was a huge increase - 42% - in operating expenses. But it... Read More
Comments (3)The End of El NoNo?
You know all about El Niño and La Niña and all the other weather patterns out there that seem to wreck havoc with the climate. Well, perhaps you are less familiar with another climatic occurrence we've seen an awful lot of over the past few years: El NoNo.Never heard of it? Sure you have. In fact, depending on your place on the product food chain of the home business, you've been a prime cause of... Read More
Comments (5)My, My Macy's
Whoever thought that in the year 2011 we would be talking about Macy's as one of the better performing retailers in home furnishings?As recently as within the last decade a whole lot of people thought we would be talking about Macy's in the past-tense as in the late, lamented department store we once knew.Instead, Macy's has righted itself and become a pretty good retailer, outperforming a lot of... Read More
Comments (4)Ga-Ga'd
Forget about cotton prices and oil supplies and a billion Chinese people wanting new towels and all the geo-political ramifications and justifications of the worldwide economy and its myriad financial subsets.I have seen the future. And its name is Ga Ga.Not necessarily Lady Gaga. At least I hope not. The last thing we need is a world in which people dress up in cold cuts, are spawned from giant e... Read More
Comments (1)
