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It’s 2007 and retailers need Community Managers

Found in: Customer Service, Social Media
Wednesday
July 4, 2007
2 Comments

Imagine it is Friday at 5:00PM and someone just posted, on their blog, about a horrible shopping experience they had at your store. Maybe a cashier was rude or maybe a store was disgusting – but whatever their frustration, they just posted their thoughts online and now it’s gotten linked to from two dozen websites and now people are talking about it across the country.

In this day, do you really want to wait until corporate PR gets into the office at 9:00AM on Monday morning before someone even thinks about reacting to this story? Monday is too late when there’s the potential that someone, reading the blog post, has decided not to shop at your store on Sunday.

Think it is far-fetched? I talked about this earlier in the year, when one consumer posted about their bad experience at a Kohl’s.

Think something like this can’t happen to your business? I can tell you that no matter how well you think you are training your employees, something somewhere is going to happen and someone is going to talk about it online. The next big story could be affecting your retail chain.

Today I read, over at Consumerist, about an unpleasant experience a person had returning items at Victoria’s Secret. Look through the comments and you will see a range of responses – some agree with the poster and complain about Victoria’s Secret customer service, while some stick up for Victoria’s Secret, while others debate the quality of merchandise Victoria’s Secret carries.

You know what I would love to see? Someone from Limited Brands posting a comment in that thread. Maybe they say that they are sorry for the experience, that they will look into it, and get in touch with the original poster privately. They could talk about how they are going to look into the policy and figure out if the sales person was poorly trained, rude, or even correct in what they do. A personal face of the corporation, being honest and engaging conversation, could stop an already bad experience from spiraling out of control. A personal face who could prevent the same situation from happening again.

This is the role of an online Community Manager: someone who represents a brand, online, and engages in honest communication with managers. It’s not hard to go through blogs, social networks, and community websites to find out what is being said about your brand. It’s not that hard to engage and welcome conversation and criticism. It’s not that hard to admit that, hey maybe someone made a mistake at the store level but it was due to poor training and we are going to correct that.

People make mistakes and they want to see big businesses admit that they do, as well. But a retailing remaining silent and ignoring the conversation around them is going to hurt their business and drive away customers.

Limited Brands to sell majority stake in Express fashion, cuts Q1 & FY2007 forecasts

Found in: News & Observations
Tuesday
May 15, 2007
1 Comment

CNBC television is reporting that Limited Brands has made three headlines:

- Limited Brands has reached an agreement with private equity firm Golden Gate Capital to sell a 67% stake in the Express brand for $548m

- They are still exploring “strategic options” for Limited Stores

- They have slashed their Q1 earnings forecast in half from $0.25 – 0.28/share to $0.12 – 0.14/share.

LTD Stock has reopened after being halted at $27.14 at 2:27 and has immediately dropped to around $26.

More from CNBC and a just issued press release by Limited Brands.

Limited Brands stock halted pending news

Found in: News & Observations
Tuesday
May 15, 2007
No Comments

CNBC television is reporting that Limited Brands stock (LTD) has been halted on the NYSE pending breaking news.

Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Street Signs” speculates that they could be going to announce some sort of spinoff.

Speculation lately has been that the chain was shopping the under performing Express Fashion and Limited stores to potential sellers. Previous spinoffs from Limited Brands have included Abercrombie & Fitch, Lane Bryant, Lerner New York, & Limited Too/Tween Brands.

Could be an interesting shakeup to the mall landscape.

April is U-G-L-Y

Found in: Monthly Retail Sales
Thursday
May 10, 2007
No Comments

If you look at the retail comp store sales numbers for the month of April, you are looking at one ugly picture. But this was to be expected when taking into account the early Easter holiday this year.

For the month of April, the mall posted lackluster numbers: Abercrombie & Fitch saw a decrease of 14% (further breakdown of the brands: A&F adult -13, abercrombie, -18, Holister -17, & Ruehl -6), American Eagle down 10, Aeropostale down 14, Ann Taylor -12.8 (further breakdown of the brands: Ann Taylor -8.2 & Ann Taylor LOFT -17.4), Gap Inc down 16 (further breakdown of the brands: Gap North America -14, Banana Republic -13, Old Navy -20, and the International division -5), Hot Topic -9.1, Limited Brands -1.0, PacSun -14.

Some department stores saw slightly better numbers, but not all of them. Winners included Nordstrom (up 3.1) and Saks Fifth Avenue (up 11.7!!). On the flipside, Kohl’s was down 10.5, Federated was down 2.2, JCPenney was down 4.7, and Dillard’s was down 14.0.

Target saw a drop of 6.1 and Wal-Mart was down 3.5.

These numbers are bad, but are the indiciative of a worrisome trend? Look at March’s numbers and remember that these April numbers don’t include Easter. I think there are some retailers who are struggling, but the industry as a whole is just fine. A better picture of retail health will be seen over the next two weeks as retailers release their second quarter earnings results.

More information from Minyanville and the New York Times.

Express Lane for 8/13/2006

Found in: Express Lane
Sunday
August 13, 2006
3 Comments

July sales came out and they were mixed, with a positive lean towards department stores. Second quarter results starting coming out, with very positive results from JC Penney and Kohl’s and strong results from Target. The bulk of the retail industry will be reporting their results this week. The Street has a great rundown on this week’s expected results (see: Coming Week: Attention Shoppers).

I am looking forward to seeing what the Second Quarter results look like this week. The numbers will be the tale of the tape in the battle of A&F vs. AE. Will there be anything positive in Gap’s results on Thursday? Did Limited Brands have a good quarter, July withstanding? Will Sears Holdings increase their bottom-line performance even though it appears that there sales haven’t? What is Home Depot doing to get them through the year? We’ll know everything this week.

Walking around the mall this week, I am very suprised at how well most retailers look. Everyone seems to be putting on a good face for the BTS season, plans are well underway, and now we’re all just hoping that the consumers will respond.

Denim, denim, denim.

PacSun’s got a big display of Levi’s 514 and 511 jeans for men. Hadn’t seen this before, so I’m assuming it is a fairly new relationship – but I think it’s a win. PacSun’s got a great brand and they’re riding the wave of the current trend with one of the harder to find styles of Levis. Credit goes to PacSun for getting it out there while Sears and JC Penney still have the 514 jean buried in the back of the department. Although it is a risky merchandising move, I think there will be a pay off for retailers like PacSun who are being so fashion-forward with this particular trend.

Came across a good story by Reuter’s today about denim marketing and BTS sales for retailers (see: Retailers step up marketing to hawk denim).

The Unlawyer talks about the effect this week’s terrorism threat has on duty-free sales and the retail enviroment in airports (see: No Liquids, No Duty-Free Sales).

Very detailed article in this month’s Apparel Magazine about Boscov’s Department store (see: Boscov’s: In a League of Its Own). This Pennsylvania-based, regional department store is making strides to better compete against the national chains in an increasingly consolidated marketplace.

And finally, kudos to The Writing on the Wal for their coverage of the Wal-Mart wage cap announcement and the effect on & reaction from Wal-Mart employees. I talked about the initial announcement here, but as I pointed out here and here, The Writing on the Wal was one of the sites I was going to for coverage.