Bankruptcy or no bankruptcy. Belk has to close stores, starting with mall locations. Belk has nearly 300 stores mostly in the southeast Compare that to around 500 which Macy’s has nation wide. (This number continues to decrease yearly)
Thoughts?
12 replies (most recent on top)
I got out ! Something told me to do it while I had the chance. Thank goodness.
I’m not @3mnq, and I’m not in a position to have a plan, but I have a conflicting feeling I want to share. Alright, with all the excitement and pride about Omni Channel, we purposely pushing customers to stop coming into stores, but they, naive stubborn people, keep coming, not able to find desirable merchandise or anybody to take their money, slowly getting the point and turning into Dillard’s customers. Success?
Yes, we have to look for this clearance top ($6) until we find it, because if we don’t, we gonna get yelled at. But hey, if we are looking for that shirt too long, shipping rate is down, and we gonna get yelled again, so everyone in this place going through not recovered for weeks piles looking for that shirt. Alright, we found it! We shipped it. Great! If customer doesn’t return it, we got to keep the profit. Success?
And Dillard’s operates like in 90th plus online business. Is it perfect and worries free? Nope. But it’s in business. And enjoying serving Belk customers. Success?
@3mnq, and, what is your plan?
You’re joking right?
We’re obviously not a retail organization pretending to operate in the 90’s. We’ve made major strides with attention to Omni Channel focus, including rolling out store Fullfillment to 100+ stores, (early Covid19 shutdown, but planned and not reactionary move). BOPIS implementation since has also proven to be a success. There is a future for many still, especially those 37 and under who have college degrees. Brick and mortar will become smaller, but there are many courses available at community colleges to advance skills that would parle into e-commerce opportunities. And for those close to retirement, I think Belk will see that through. Let’s all work to our best ability for one another to see they prevail. In the meantime, our days together will be more positive and productive.
“Dime a dozen?” Huh, this is one of many problems of retail- people with your mentality get into management.
These positions are dime a dozen. Easily replaceable and in the age of ecomm- prehistoric. This isn’t the retail of the 90’s folks.
“Learn skills and get out of retail “.
Visual merchandiser- highly skilled job, requiring creativity, imagination, artistic eye, knowledge of fashion and trends, fast reaction, smart planning and time management.
Loss Prevention- highly skilled job. Sharp eye on different behavior, knowledge of camera functions, ability to recognize faces from available (not professional) photos from counterparts, skills to investigate and collect strong evidence able to stand in court, knowledge of relevant laws.
Makeup/ skincare expert- full knowledge of products, understanding of customers expectations, pretty much ability to guess since not many people can explain what they want ( or they even don’t know what they want), amazing likability ( if you not born with it- highly professional skill!), keeping equipment and testers up to standards - can be liability issues if somebody gets infection after being at the counter.
Merchandise presentation, management role, fine Jewelry sales with knowledge of stones, grades, clarity and etc. I can go on or you got the point? Retail is not a job without skills. There is no natural death of retail. There are many problems there nobody wants to fix. And we need strong law protecting businesses from what Sycamore and similar groups do- extracting all money and leave SKILLED people jobless.
Because leases expire and kick out clauses are signed stupid.
Stupid question. Why would Belk close mall stores 1st? High rent?
Learn skills and get out of retail.
Thoughts? I think too much salt ruins a good soup.
I have other thoughts too..