We need a reason for the clients to visit stores

Last week retail earnings came out and as a usual number of articles about retail issues had spiked.

 In nutshell:

“If you offer good value in retail you are winning. Everyone else is in trouble” (Target is up 90%YTD, Macy’s is down 50%),

“Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette's Recent Strategies Are as Outdated as Department Stores Themselves”.

Basically, everything comes to the point: there is no reason for a client to visit department stores, period. No one is coming to the store unless it sells heavy discounted products. But was it always about the product?

In the late 1990s and 2000s, I worked as a manager at SAKS San Francisco. General Manager was Clinton Paul, flamboyant, interesting men. His office was full of small palm trees and little wooden figurines standing under those trees. If he invited me for the meeting to his office, he would make sure he wore the Russian Olympic team uniform (I am Russian) to make me laugh. And every single day for a few hours he would stand at the store’s main entrance and open door for customers. All the store managers hated this: those orange pants! He is not a concierge! Nothing to do?

From time to time stores organize client surveys. One of those surveys had a question: What is the biggest single thing you enjoy the most when you come to SAKS SF? You probably guessed the answer: Clients didn’t just name Mr. Paul opening the door, they went into long compliments, saying how much they enjoy talking to him, how honored they were to be invited to the store by GM, how they felt like part of the family. It was a very small thing but it made a huge difference in the store’s moral and made clients feel at home.

I am not saying that the Nordstrom brothers should start working the door, but its business continues to decline, who knows, maybe :)