Speaker 1: For years, when someone thought of the holidays, they likely
Speaker 1: thought of Macy's. From ushering in Christmas with Santa in
Speaker 1: the holiday parades, two giant trees to department store windows,
Speaker 1: and even a miracle of a movie, this company has
Speaker 1: made Christmas and the holiday season it's business. But it
Speaker 1: hasn't been all eggnog and mistletoe for this festive department store.
Speaker 1: As in, they found themselves on the naughty list and
Speaker 1: in financial trouble. Let's grab a cup of good cheer
Speaker 1: and find out how this company fought its way back
Speaker 1: through the blizzard of bankruptcy and a changing marketplace. Like
Speaker 1: a Rudolph led sleigh, this is Macy's on the brink. Earl,
Speaker 1: you really did yourself writing that intro. This time I
Speaker 1: could tell you loved it. Jonathan. I got got a
Speaker 1: little heavy handed with the Rudolph. But today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about Macy's and really it's funny. We were
Speaker 1: looking over this aerial while you were doing your research.
Speaker 1: You saw that Macy's actually has a lot of different
Speaker 1: moments in its history that we could define as a
Speaker 1: potential brink. Yes, we are specifically looking at a time
Speaker 1: that started kind of in the mid eighties and went
Speaker 1: into the early to mid nineties. That was the real
Speaker 1: brink that we're focusing on. But we're gonna give an
Speaker 1: overview of some other stuff with Macy's too, just because
Speaker 1: you know, it's good to have a basic understanding of
Speaker 1: the subject before you get into like and here's where
Speaker 1: it all went roll. Yeah, and I mean specifically for
Speaker 1: this story. It's actually the story of a bunch of
Speaker 1: department store conglomerates who are all kind of buying to
Speaker 1: buy the most stores to bring into their giant blob
Speaker 1: of department stores. Yeah. It's almost a I'm going to
Speaker 1: buy you before you buy me kind of story. Yes,
Speaker 1: And it's so interwoven that if you go to the
Speaker 1: Macy's website and you look their history, which of course
Speaker 1: I did, half of their history talks about like the
Speaker 1: Federated Department Stores or may Department Stores Company, which are
Speaker 1: the other two major major players in this game. We're
Speaker 1: trying to focus mainly on Macy's history, but they are
Speaker 1: a part of it. Yeah, So before any of them
Speaker 1: became a part of Macy's history, the company itself can
Speaker 1: trace its origins back to a fairly modest beginning all
Speaker 1: the way back in the nineteenth century, the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: that's when you had the founder R. H. Macy. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Macy's what would become Macy's was not the first
Speaker 1: company or business they tried to open. He had tried
Speaker 1: to open a series of dry goods retail establishments. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I think also possibly like a sewing store or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, but um, they didn't work so good.
Speaker 1: A lot of his businesses went belly up, much like whales.
Speaker 1: He used to hunt because he was a whaler and
Speaker 1: he was also heard of the gold Rush, so he
Speaker 1: was a prospector and a whaler. And then he starts
Speaker 1: opening up dry goods stores in New York. So really
Speaker 1: we're looking at New York City eighteen fifty eight and
Speaker 1: the event that would lead into the opening of the
Speaker 1: first Macy's. So this was a little bitty dry goods
Speaker 1: store and it actually started in have Her Hill one
Speaker 1: and then it went okay but not great. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was it was the one that went okay instead of bad.
Speaker 1: So then he said, I'm gonna go to New York
Speaker 1: City and I'm going to open this big, fancy department
Speaker 1: dry goods store. Yeah, it's New York City, where folks
Speaker 1: know what dry goods stores are supposed to be. Like,
Speaker 1: he opened up R. H. Macy and Company, and Uh,
Speaker 1: just looking over the history, one of the history points
Speaker 1: that I I thought was funny is that on the very
Speaker 1: first day of sales, the company made a whopping eleven
Speaker 1: dollars six cents. So that was just the first day. However,
Speaker 1: the first year was a different story. Things went pretty well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they made eight five th dollars. They spent that on marketing. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they expanded their store into eleven adjacent buildings
Speaker 1: and also expanded out from dry goods and they became
Speaker 1: one of the first department stores. Yeah. So this is
Speaker 1: a special time in American history that that transition from
Speaker 1: the local dry goods store into the larger department store,
Speaker 1: which was kind of the evolution of that type of retail.
Speaker 1: And Macy's would end up being a pioneer in many
Speaker 1: ways beyond this large expansion into eleven buildings. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: instituted a lot of firsts into his company that other
Speaker 1: companies use nowadays. So he was the first institute one price.
Speaker 1: Prior to this time, most stores you'd go in and
Speaker 1: you taggle and he put the prices, those single prices
Speaker 1: in his paper ads so that people could say, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is how much money I need to save to
Speaker 1: go buy this item that I want to buy. They also,
Speaker 1: for a long time only did cash buying and purchasing,
Speaker 1: both on a store level and on a customer level. Nah,
Speaker 1: so they wouldn't do credit at least at first, not
Speaker 1: not for many many years. Uh, they gave money back guarantees.
Speaker 1: And another big, big first, he was the first to
Speaker 1: promote a woman to executive levels. So Margaret Getchell became
Speaker 1: the store superintendent for Macy's. And a little bit more
Speaker 1: about Getchell. She's very very important in the history of
Speaker 1: Macy's for multiple reasons. First of all, she gets a
Speaker 1: lot of credit for helping the store succeed. She was
Speaker 1: there to originally be a cashier and do some bookkeeping,
Speaker 1: but she was also a very savvy businesswoman, and she
Speaker 1: helped make decisions, including marketing decisions that guided the store
Speaker 1: to those early successes. And so a lot of different
Speaker 1: sources talk about Getchell being an instrumental figure in the
Speaker 1: early days of Macy's. She was also distantly related to
Speaker 1: macy She was essentially a cousin to him. And also
Speaker 1: she had lost an eye, so she was a one woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had been a teacher, but she apparently agreed to
Speaker 1: go and work for macy because she figured it would
Speaker 1: put less strain on her one remaining eye. And she
Speaker 1: also is the one who convinced Macy to adopt the
Speaker 1: logo for the store, which is a star logo. And
Speaker 1: where did the star logo come from? Ariel Christmas time? No,
Speaker 1: it did not, you know where it came from. I know.
Speaker 1: It's actually a tattoo he had on his arm back
Speaker 1: from when he was a whaler. It was like the
Speaker 1: star that guided him home. Yeah, so it's I just
Speaker 1: like the thought that one of the famous logos from
Speaker 1: retail history has its history itself tied into a tattoo. Well,
Speaker 1: since you stomped on my holiday cheer just a second ago,
Speaker 1: even though it was wrong, m I'm going to bring
Speaker 1: it back. Some other first that Macy's had. They were
Speaker 1: the first to feature Santa Claus Santa Claus statue in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, and they were the first to have
Speaker 1: the big old fancy window displays in eighteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: And they were the first retailer to get a liquor
Speaker 1: license in New York City after the prohibition. But they
Speaker 1: were also the first one to get a liquor license
Speaker 1: in New York City at all from retailers. So if
Speaker 1: you look at the retail store liquor licenses, Macy's is
Speaker 1: number one. They number their liquor license. Macy's was the
Speaker 1: first retailer to get a liquor license in the city
Speaker 1: of New York. They used to sell wine and liquor.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit about that in just a second.
Speaker 1: But then they also set some firsts that I'm sure
Speaker 1: thrilled customers and filled employees with dread. Yes, in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, they became the first store to stay open
Speaker 1: until midnight on Christmas Eve. So when you realize, oh no,
Speaker 1: I forgot to buy a gift for the wife, you
Speaker 1: could go to macy So if you're driving to Macy's
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve at midnight, right now, we're with you.
Speaker 1: In eight seventy they hit a million dollars in sales.
Speaker 1: That's that's a good annual sales figure for eighteen seventies, Yes,
Speaker 1: it is. And in eighteen seventies seven R. H. Macy
Speaker 1: passed away, he handed the store over to able To
Speaker 1: la Forge and Robert M. Valentine, who are partners and
Speaker 1: also extended family, and they took over Macy's. Did have
Speaker 1: a son, but he didn't have any interest in continue business. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So LaForge was Margaret Gretchel's husband. He had started as
Speaker 1: a buyer for Macy's and she married him, so he
Speaker 1: was that since a part of the extended family. He
Speaker 1: would pass away in eighteen seventy eight, just a year
Speaker 1: after Macy did. He had tuberculosis. Gretchel would follow in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty out of from heart congestion mainly, but Valentine
Speaker 1: would oversee the store at least until eighteen nine five.
Speaker 1: And that's when a different family would step in. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Stress Brothers is a door in Nathan and their dad. Uh.
Speaker 1: They had been leasing the basement of Macy's already. They
Speaker 1: had been bringing a lot of success to the store themselves,
Speaker 1: and they were also the ones who created the China
Speaker 1: department for Macy's. Yeah, so they already had a stake
Speaker 1: in the store at this point. Now they did a
Speaker 1: first they started the odd price policy quote unquote, yeah,
Speaker 1: you walk in, Hey, that door knobs dollars. That's strange. No,
Speaker 1: it means that instead of having a four dollar item,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a three dollar nine cent item, so
Speaker 1: that if you buy multiple items, like if you say,
Speaker 1: buy five towels for now, you save five cents. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that that is a
Speaker 1: psychological tool. And it's funny because we now see it
Speaker 1: all the time, right, this is you see ninety nine
Speaker 1: and it plays that little bit of a psychological trick
Speaker 1: on us as well, because you sit there and think, oh,
Speaker 1: that's less than the next number up, and you feel
Speaker 1: like you're saving at that moment. Now to me, it
Speaker 1: seems like that would make a bigger difference back then,
Speaker 1: because a penny went a lot further. They then moved
Speaker 1: the store in nineteen o two. It had outgrown it's
Speaker 1: eleven building, large area, and they moved to thirty four
Speaker 1: and Broadway right. And then, sorry, I was just taken
Speaker 1: back by how you said that it was beautiful. I
Speaker 1: was having a producer's moment, and that was that was
Speaker 1: a big building, nine story building, so very tall building.
Speaker 1: It's not as tall as what Macy's would later inhabit,
Speaker 1: but yes, and according to your research. If you were
Speaker 1: to go to that building, you would see some of
Speaker 1: the original work still there, like some of the originals.
Speaker 1: They still have some of the wooden escalators that were
Speaker 1: from the original. In nineteen eighteen, they made thirty six
Speaker 1: million dollars in annual sales. That's a lot of money
Speaker 1: back then, a lot of money right now, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would not turn my nose off. And then in nine
Speaker 1: two they went public and they started acquiring regional stores.
Speaker 1: So this is where we start seeing them branch out
Speaker 1: from being a New York based department store and they
Speaker 1: start creating what would eventually become a chain of stores.
Speaker 1: Nineteen twenty four we see the start of what would
Speaker 1: become an annual tradition. One of the big ones, although
Speaker 1: it was on a different date in nineteen that would
Speaker 1: be the Macy's Christmas Parade, now known as the macy
Speaker 1: Sanksgiving Day Parade. Now. I used to watch the local
Speaker 1: one in Atlanta and also the one on TV. People
Speaker 1: attended the first one and they had all of these
Speaker 1: like animals and fun thing it was. It was very
Speaker 1: different then. It was more like almost like a traveling
Speaker 1: circus type thing, and the parade was actually organized by
Speaker 1: the employees. It was wrought to life by the employees
Speaker 1: of Macy's wanted to celebrate their American heritage. Now it's
Speaker 1: a much, much, much larger production that involves people from
Speaker 1: all over the world, not just the United States. It
Speaker 1: also gets people hyped for the beginning of the shopping season. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the biggest purpose exactly, kind of like, alright, now,
Speaker 1: everyone come inside and buy your stocking stuffers. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: one we would get some leges lation that would affect Macy's,
Speaker 1: the federal Fair Trade Law, which meant that there had
Speaker 1: to be specific minimum prices in retail for certain suppliers.
Speaker 1: And this was to help stabilize the economy during the depression.
Speaker 1: So certain retailers and certain suppliers had you keep a
Speaker 1: minimum price, Like, they couldn't go below a minimum price.
Speaker 1: You couldn't suddenly have like a price war going below
Speaker 1: a certain because the federal law mandated that they be
Speaker 1: at least this much. Yes, so Macy's couldn't be undersold.
Speaker 1: And they were such a large company that they could,
Speaker 1: much like Walmart or Target, keep that bottom price. So
Speaker 1: then you have this wonderful little note here about Fred
Speaker 1: Lazarus Junr. In nineteen thirty nine. He was the owner
Speaker 1: of Federated Department Stores. We talked about that a couple
Speaker 1: of times, the holding company that owned other department stores.
Speaker 1: He is the person who chatted with Roosevelt the President,
Speaker 1: about making just a little minor change in the calendar,
Speaker 1: because up to that point, Thanksgiving was always the last
Speaker 1: Thursday of November, and they decided that maybe we could
Speaker 1: bump that up one week to be the second to
Speaker 1: last Thursday in November because that would give us more
Speaker 1: time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to sell things. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: this change helped all the retailers. Yeah, So it wasn't
Speaker 1: just Federated Department Store saying we want to get ahead. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean they couldn't say, like, can you make Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: a week early but only for us? Yeah. In Macy's
Speaker 1: purchased some stores in California O'Connor, Moffit and company to
Speaker 1: expand westward, Yeah, and convert them over into Macy's department stores.
Speaker 1: And in those stores in California they did their first
Speaker 1: Macy's department store Flower Show. Now a movie comes out,
Speaker 1: and one movie came out. A specific movie came out
Speaker 1: that has to do with Macy's and you already alluded
Speaker 1: to it. Yes, yes, Virginia talk about Miracle on thirty
Speaker 1: fourth Street. Miracle on thirty fourth Street. It's about a
Speaker 1: Macy's department store, Santa. It was a little bit magical.
Speaker 1: And in the movie, he tells some customers to go
Speaker 1: for to Gimbal's because Macy's is out of stock of
Speaker 1: an item, but Gimbal's might have it, And that created
Speaker 1: such goodwill for the company of Macy's that more people
Speaker 1: wanted to shop at Macy's because they were looking out
Speaker 1: for the customer first. And that's what happened in the movie.
Speaker 1: And in the movie, Gimble and Macy become friends, even
Speaker 1: though macy was dead by that time. It was hard
Speaker 1: to be friends. I mean maybe it as a zombie, yeah,
Speaker 1: But but this whole like idea of friendship, and this
Speaker 1: whole movie helped both stores for many, many years with
Speaker 1: their holiday sales. In the nineteen fifties, Macy's would finally
Speaker 1: start issuing credit accounts, no longer taking cash only, although
Speaker 1: it would benefit you if you stuck with cash, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you charged six percent last yeah. And then nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two they hit a little bit of a snag
Speaker 1: because that was when the federal fair trade law was overturned. Yes,
Speaker 1: so now it was fair game for undercutting prices. There
Speaker 1: wasn't price fixing to keep Macie's safe in the market,
Speaker 1: and so they had to of course compete with all
Speaker 1: these people who could have lower prices, and they posted
Speaker 1: their very first loss that year. Now they had a subsidiary, Bamburgers,
Speaker 1: who instead of like trying to cut and buy cheaper
Speaker 1: things and lower prices, bought a bunch of top the
Speaker 1: line goods and made all these lavish displays, and people
Speaker 1: really liked it as kind of a specialty store. So
Speaker 1: Macy's actually made a good bit of money from them. Interesting,
Speaker 1: So yeah, almost going the opposite direction there. But they
Speaker 1: also started looking at some of their departments that weren't
Speaker 1: being particularly productive. They were kind of being seen as
Speaker 1: a drain on resources, so they started consolidating and getting
Speaker 1: rid of departments. Yes, okay, so in nineteen seventy six
Speaker 1: they got the seller. It was literally the bargain basement
Speaker 1: of Macy's. So this is where people could go and
Speaker 1: buy super discounted items or last run items, things like that.
Speaker 1: And then in seventy nine, they axed their liquor and
Speaker 1: wine department that we talked about earlier, but this was
Speaker 1: apparently something that had been going on in New York
Speaker 1: City for a while. Other retailers, we're getting out of that.
Speaker 1: According to Macy's, it was because men's were needed more space.
Speaker 1: Maybe men were putting on more weight or more close yet,
Speaker 1: maybe they were cold. But the scuttle butt was that
Speaker 1: the department had actually been unprofitable for twenty years, and
Speaker 1: so they finally pulled the plug on it. And then
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, and we're finally getting to the
Speaker 1: brain here, they started opening up specialty stores. In nineteen two,
Speaker 1: Macy's taught the industry in profit per square foot, and
Speaker 1: in eighty four they hit over four billion dollars. But
Speaker 1: while four billion dollars in eighty four is a huge
Speaker 1: amount of money, they were right around the corner from
Speaker 1: hitting a really rough time. And we'll plane exactly what
Speaker 1: happened in just a moment. All right, So eighty four
Speaker 1: Macy's has a banner making year, right, they make four
Speaker 1: billion dollars in sales. But the hits and the economy
Speaker 1: starts to slow down, and as a result, people have
Speaker 1: less money to spend on shopping and fewer people are
Speaker 1: coming in and buying stuff at Macy's, which means Macy's
Speaker 1: sales slowed down. So now they're finding themselves with too
Speaker 1: much inventory and they had to keep dropping their prices
Speaker 1: in order to just move product. And they still did
Speaker 1: okay in eighty five, but it was a drop in
Speaker 1: their trend and it was causing a drop in their stocks.
Speaker 1: And this made executives at Macy's worried that federated department
Speaker 1: stores are made. Department store company was going to come
Speaker 1: in and try to take them over, because now they
Speaker 1: might be showing a week. Yeah, so some of the
Speaker 1: executives are bailing out. The stock prices starting to drop.
Speaker 1: This is one of the issues of being a publicly
Speaker 1: traded company, obviously, is that you have shareholders to answer to.
Speaker 1: So one solution to this problem is, well, what if
Speaker 1: we just buy up all the shares of stock and
Speaker 1: turn the company private again. So Ed Finkelstein, the president
Speaker 1: of the flagship store, led a buyout with all the
Speaker 1: other executives or a lot of the other executives. They
Speaker 1: bought Macy's for seventy dollars a share and at Finkelstein
Speaker 1: became the CEO. Yeah, this was largely to protect Macy's
Speaker 1: from being taken over by one of the competitors. The
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties was an era. We've talked about this, I
Speaker 1: think a couple of times on the brink. The nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties was an era where the hostile takeover and the
Speaker 1: leveraged buyout where both frequently used tools where companies would
Speaker 1: swoop in and take over another company without their it's it.
Speaker 1: So instead of acquiring or merging with a company, you
Speaker 1: just go in and throw a stock maneuver, you take
Speaker 1: over another company. And they were worried about that. And
Speaker 1: this was the biggest takeover of a retailer at that time.
Speaker 1: So at that point, things at least at first looked
Speaker 1: like they might actually be on the up and up.
Speaker 1: They almost made profit over the debt they incurred from
Speaker 1: the buyout, which is no small matter. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: seen acquisitions. In fact, we'll talk about a couple that
Speaker 1: ended up accruing so much debt that companies were never
Speaker 1: able to recover from. Yeah. In fact, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: it now because in Macy's bought some of the federated
Speaker 1: stores in an attempt to start taking them over because Okay,
Speaker 1: we're doing good. This was this was a good move.
Speaker 1: They bought Bullocks and Bullocks will Shires and it costs
Speaker 1: them a billion dollars and it tipped the debt scales
Speaker 1: against them, and so you've got that, and you've got
Speaker 1: the recession, and the holiday sales are down, profits are down,
Speaker 1: which is really tough because Macy's makes like of their
Speaker 1: annual revenue off of holiday sales. So now they're having
Speaker 1: to drop prices again and they're getting overstocked again. So
Speaker 1: they're going back to that same problem that led all
Speaker 1: of the executives to buy Macy's, which led to this
Speaker 1: whole snowball. It's just it's this circular issue I was
Speaker 1: feeding on itself. And then they tried to buy back
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars in bonds at half value to
Speaker 1: help alleviate some of their debt, and they announced that
Speaker 1: they're going to stop paying back their suppliers for the
Speaker 1: indefinite future. Yeah, that's never a great sign now, and
Speaker 1: then they had more bad holiday sales. So this leads
Speaker 1: into January when it is no longer avoidable Macy's files
Speaker 1: for bankruptcy protection under Chapter eleven. Their creditors were in
Speaker 1: need of their money, they were not able to pay
Speaker 1: their suppliers, they were not doing well in sales, and
Speaker 1: this was, you know, kind of that hail Mary passed
Speaker 1: to try and stay solvent long enough to to recover. Yes,
Speaker 1: and in April of that year at Finkelstein steps out
Speaker 1: as CEO and Myron E. Olman and Mark S. Handler
Speaker 1: step in. They had a five year plan to turn
Speaker 1: around and reorganize the company instead of a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of layoffs. Some of their big ideas where to cut
Speaker 1: the marketing budget and have less one day sales and
Speaker 1: have better customer service, and put in a computerized system
Speaker 1: so they don't have so much overstock and inventory. And
Speaker 1: then happy holiday miracle, they have a better than expected
Speaker 1: holiday season. Also in that same year, Federated Department Stores
Speaker 1: would emerge from bankruptcy. Campo had ceased to exist, so
Speaker 1: Federated had re emerged as a public company that will
Speaker 1: become important again in just a moment. Back on Macy's side,
Speaker 1: in three they had closed sixty six on profitable stores
Speaker 1: in an effort to get rid of things that were
Speaker 1: losing the money and open things that would make them money. Yes,
Speaker 1: so they open up news stores too, but these were
Speaker 1: in areas where they projected that they would be able
Speaker 1: to make a profit. Yes. Then Federated Department Stores, two
Speaker 1: years out of bankruptcy, comes up and acquires Macy's. The
Speaker 1: event that was feared back in the eighties has come
Speaker 1: to pass. Yes. Well, I mean they did kind of
Speaker 1: ask for it because shortly after Macy's had their buy out,
Speaker 1: they bought some of Federated. The tides have turned. Yes,
Speaker 1: so Federated comes in and they acquire Macy's. This makes
Speaker 1: Federated a true giant in the department store industry. Yes,
Speaker 1: that gives them more than four hundred department stores in
Speaker 1: thirty seven different states. And they are acquiring of Macy's.
Speaker 1: Had to be approved by the US bankruptcy court because
Speaker 1: this makes them such a large company. Yeah. This was
Speaker 1: one of those moves where a company has to pass
Speaker 1: government approval in order to actually go forward with a plan,
Speaker 1: because it's a possibility that the government would say no,
Speaker 1: this constitutes a monopoly and therefore it's anti competitive. Yes,
Speaker 1: but you know, Federated isn't trying to wipe out Macy's.
Speaker 1: Macy's has got a good name for itself. They're just
Speaker 1: trying to make one of us well. And also Macy's
Speaker 1: was in danger of not being anything anymore. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they acquired it, and then they emerged Macy's in their
Speaker 1: A and S in Jordan Eastern divisions to create one
Speaker 1: giant division worth four billion dollars. Yeah. And then they
Speaker 1: opened the Logistics in Operations division to help them distribute
Speaker 1: things better. So they're fixing some of the problems Macy's
Speaker 1: had and was struggling with. Ye. They would start to
Speaker 1: turn some of their stores into either a Macy's or
Speaker 1: a Bloomingdale's. So but more Yeah, but this was this
Speaker 1: was largely taking existing department stores and then changing them
Speaker 1: over to this other brand. Sometimes it would mean, you know,
Speaker 1: different labels of clothing, for example, might be carried instead
Speaker 1: of what had been. But it was really repurposing already
Speaker 1: existing department stores but giving them a new identity. Yes,
Speaker 1: And then in they launched Macy's dot Com and then
Speaker 1: they relaunched it, and then it was there. Macy's dot
Speaker 1: Com was there and it existed and people could use it.
Speaker 1: So now we're getting to the part where things are
Speaker 1: turning around. When we come back, will kind of follow
Speaker 1: up with how things developed from that point forward and
Speaker 1: have a couple of fun little tidbits along the way.
Speaker 1: But first, let's take a break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're back and we're going to get back
Speaker 1: to positive. In two thousand three, Federated department Stores started
Speaker 1: co branding the regional department stores as Macy's, so you'd
Speaker 1: have like Riches Dash Macy's. Yeah. It was actually kind
Speaker 1: of messy for a while, and by two thousand five
Speaker 1: they realized that they converted all the regional department stores
Speaker 1: to Macy's, yeah, removing some of that confusion. Also in
Speaker 1: two thousand three, a very important event happened. One that's
Speaker 1: incredibly important to the city of Atlanta, Georgia, where we are.
Speaker 1: One that's incredibly important to me as someone who has
Speaker 1: lived in Atlanta, Georgia, I would say that I was
Speaker 1: Forloren that I missed this little holiday tidbit. Except for
Speaker 1: the fact that I've never been to the place you're
Speaker 1: about to talk about, you can still experience it. But
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, there was this thing, the pink Pig. Pink
Speaker 1: pig associated with Christmas, by the way. It was on
Speaker 1: top of the rooftop at Riches department store in downtown Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and uh there was a mono rail little ride that
Speaker 1: had a pig face at the front of it, a
Speaker 1: pink pig, and the whole thing was painted pink, and
Speaker 1: you could ride in this little monorail. And then after
Speaker 1: a while that version of the ride would eventually get
Speaker 1: phased out and it became more of a standard train
Speaker 1: on tracks, but it was still with a pig face
Speaker 1: in the front, and it was the pink pig. And
Speaker 1: it was at Riches for years and years and years
Speaker 1: and years. But then the richest department store closed in
Speaker 1: the nineties and they decided to run the ride for
Speaker 1: a little bit at a different park, But eventually they
Speaker 1: decided that was too expensive and it kind of went away.
Speaker 1: But in two thousand three, Macy's resurrected it and in
Speaker 1: Atlanta at the Lenox Square Macy's over in their parking
Speaker 1: lot area, the top of the parking garage, they have
Speaker 1: the pink pig. Now is it year round or is
Speaker 1: it a holiday? It's holiday. It's Christmas oriented. So around
Speaker 1: Christmas you can go to Lenox Square and you can
Speaker 1: ride yourself the pink pig Man, because nothing is synonymous
Speaker 1: in my mind like a pig and Christmas. All right.
Speaker 1: So also to help with this reinvigoration, with getting back
Speaker 1: on their feet, macy starts a loyalty program in two
Speaker 1: thousand five. The more you shop at Macy's, the more
Speaker 1: benefits you get. And that would also be the year
Speaker 1: that Federated would acquire the May department stores. So now
Speaker 1: those three big entities that had been competing with one
Speaker 1: another all belonged to the same Mecca Godzilla department store.
Speaker 1: And in two thousand six started the transporation of the
Speaker 1: May stores to Macy's. Which is easy. You just put
Speaker 1: a C in there and an apost vs. Yes, you
Speaker 1: just get a scoot it over. But this made Macy's
Speaker 1: from coast to coast so filled in any of the
Speaker 1: gaps they had in the states where stores were missing.
Speaker 1: In two thousand eight, they celebrated being a century and
Speaker 1: a half old. Hundred fifty years old. Yes, and by
Speaker 1: this time Federated is no longer Federated. Now Federated is
Speaker 1: Macy's inc. Right, So Macy's Incorporated is now the holding company.
Speaker 1: So Macy's the department store and Macy's Inc. Are technically
Speaker 1: two different things. You have Mazie's Inc. That's the holding
Speaker 1: company that owns the Macy's department stores, which makes things
Speaker 1: a little confusing. It's interesting to me that the company
Speaker 1: that acquired Macy's said now we want to be Mazie's
Speaker 1: two By two thousand ten, Macy's Inc. Is solid. They're
Speaker 1: doing real good, so much so that they announced a
Speaker 1: four hundred million dollar renovation to the Herald Square Macy's
Speaker 1: that they would start in two twelve. And also they
Speaker 1: decide we're gonna focus some more of our marketing towards millennials. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I guess you walk into a Macy's and they say,
Speaker 1: welcome to Macy's. Here's your avocado toast. Yes, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that is exactly what it is. So what's going on
Speaker 1: these days areal well, Like I said, Macy's is really
Speaker 1: trying to focus on what customers needs are, what their
Speaker 1: desires are. They're trying to focus their marketing and change
Speaker 1: with the trends. So online shopping is becoming more of
Speaker 1: a thing. I mean it has been more of a
Speaker 1: thing for more than a decade now. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: hurts retailers. So Macy's is really trying to stay on
Speaker 1: top of that and find interesting ways to bring people
Speaker 1: into the stores or to their online site in an
Speaker 1: effort to stay relevant. Uh, same day delivery and selected areas.
Speaker 1: I think they've got eight markets, online purchase, in store pickup,
Speaker 1: and mobile paying systems Apple. Yeah. For me, what I
Speaker 1: need is I need I need sort of a personal
Speaker 1: shopper type person who walks with me and Macy's, which
Speaker 1: I've seen before and says this would look good on you.
Speaker 1: Stop looking at that thing that will make you look bad.
Speaker 1: I mean the time that I was at Harold Square, Macy's,
Speaker 1: I did have a personal shop. That's what I'm saying
Speaker 1: that they that's the sort of thing that Macy's has
Speaker 1: done to help bring people in, and that's the sort
Speaker 1: of stuff that benefits me. Yes, because I'm hopeless, you
Speaker 1: are not. You might think you are, you better than anything.
Speaker 1: In two thousand fifteen, they did have another bad year.
Speaker 1: They didn't meet their estimated goals, but again, because they
Speaker 1: were so focused on consumer market trends and customer interests,
Speaker 1: they were able to turn it around. I mean retail
Speaker 1: is has been iffy in the past few years in general, right,
Speaker 1: we've seen an actual decrease in the number of people
Speaker 1: going to physical retail stores over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Even on traditionally busy days like Black Friday, we've seen
Speaker 1: a decrease in the number of people going to those stores.
Speaker 1: But by end of two thousand seventeen, Macy's had made
Speaker 1: a fiscal sale amount of twenty four point eight three
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars billion dollars, which exceeded what they were
Speaker 1: estimating they would make. That's fantastic. Yeah, so the company
Speaker 1: is still going strong. We still have the traditional Macy's
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Day parade. It happened again this year. Did you
Speaker 1: watch it this past year? I did, My sister did
Speaker 1: as well. I missed it. Pillsbury door boy had a
Speaker 1: very scary mouth because it was so cold out. His
Speaker 1: mouth just kind of shriveled up. Oh no, it's like
Speaker 1: like once the screen. Um. Well, that wraps up our
Speaker 1: talk about Macy's and the Brink and how those late eighties.
Speaker 1: I mean it was rough for all department stores for
Speaker 1: multiple reasons, a large one being that that greed is
Speaker 1: good kind of mentality that various nineteen eighties businesses we're pursuing,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure, in fact, I am absolutely positive that
Speaker 1: we will be doing other episodes of The Brink where
Speaker 1: that kind of plays into because that's why we had
Speaker 1: films like Wall Street, right, it had this this mentality
Speaker 1: that bread this kind of of of mythology around it,
Speaker 1: and not all of it turned out great. Yes, funny,
Speaker 1: funny little tidbit last night when I turned on my
Speaker 1: TV two channels next to each other, first Miracle on
Speaker 1: thirty four Streets, second Wolf of Fall Street. Oh, I
Speaker 1: guess we get the long and short of it right there. Well,
Speaker 1: that wraps up this episode until next time. I have
Speaker 1: been Jonathan Strickland and I have been aero casting. If
Speaker 1: you would like to learn more about what we've talked about,
Speaker 1: as well as keep track of all of our episodes,
Speaker 1: make sure you visit our website at the Brink Podcast
Speaker 1: dot show, or you can email us at Feedback at
Speaker 1: the Brink Podcast dot show