Tag: business
The real reason for the decline of Macys
Over the course of the last year, both Macys stores within a reasonable drive closed. No doubt, those closings will seal the fate of the malls for which they were anchor stores.
I am getting a little tired of reading the business obituaries of Macys that claim Amazon is somehow to blame for their decline. It is easy for me to understand what happened to them and it has nothing to do with Amazon.
Macys committed suicide.
I remember buying a beautiful pair of 100% wool, Italian import navy dress trousers from them in the late 1990s. My Italian tailor loved them. As soon as I drop the 15 pounds I put on this winter, I will wear them again.
As a customer of Macy’s for decades, I don’t need to study financial statements and demographic trends to understand what happened. I have watched the slow, relentless decline of the quality of their merchandise for the last two decades. Since I bought those Italian pants nearly twenty years ago, I haven’t bought much from them and certainly not men’s clothing. They went from carrying excellent products to cheap, low quality “designer” products, manufactured in Chinese or other Asian sweatshops. Fit is a problem as well. Their men’s clothing all seemed to be designed for twenty-somethings who drink skinny soy lattes and have never seen the inside of a gym.
These days, I get suits and wool trousers from my haberdasher – H. Strauss. I can still purchase quality products there and they are often made in the United States. I buy underwear from Brooks Brothers because they fit nicely and last forever. I used to swear by their shirts too, but the fabric doesn’t seem to be of the same quality as it used to be and the selection is much smaller. Fortunately, my haberdasher does custom shirts for just a little bit more than I can buy them off the rack at Brooks Brothers.
Don’t blame the decline of Macys on Amazon. They did themselves in by abandoning quality.
© Copyright Jeffrey Morgan, 2017
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