With the disappointing Holiday season behind us, the layoffs and retail store closings are continuing to mount:
Today, Home Depot has announced that they are closing their line of Expo home design centers and trimming support staff, resulting in 7,000 reduction in staff. With both home sales and the economy down, shoppers aren’t looking for high end home design solutions right now. The retailer is quick to note that the layoffs will not impact any customer service positions at the Home Depot proper chain.
It appears that their Expo stores weren’t performing well during the housing boom, so it’s no surprise that they would be doing even worse during the current economic conditions.
Another victim of the housing slump is Williams-Sonoma. On Friday, the retailer announced an 18% reduction in their workforce. In addition to stores being effected by the layoffs, the retailer will also close a call center in Pennsylvania and a distribution center in Memphis. I think the high end housewares stores have been hurt badly by both the economic downturn and mid-market retailers like JCPenney and Kohl’s.
Starbucks, who closed 600 stores in 2008, is expected to eliminate 1,000 jobs at their corporate headquarters and reducing district managers and field employees. The published report, prepared by investment firm McAdams Wright Ragen, speculates that these layoffs will happen in early February and won’t effect store-level barista positions.
And don’t forget that last week Circuit City announced that they are closing all US operations with job losses effecting up to 35,000 people.
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Social Shopping is an emerging field and E-Commerce Times has a great post that explains what is is, provides a rundown of different social shopping services, and opportunities for retailer involvement within the field.
With social media transforming the way we work and interact, there becomes less of a distinction between the time we spend on and off the clock, so to say. Steve Bendt provides a great look into the ramifications of wage laws in the United States and the impact they have on retailers who look to use social media to connect with their customers.
Get Elastic is talking about the viral marketing video campaign from Office Max that ties in to their Back to School “Penny” marketing. I really like this campaign. It is a series of fun videos that ties in well with the overall brand position for Officemax for this season. Good job by Officemax, I think.
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Just two quick links for today:
In regards to today’s earlier entry about the perils of catching a shoplifter, I came across another recent story on the same topic. Last week, a shoplifter tried to stab a Home Depot security guard with a screwdriver he just stole.
Then there’s an article from the Billings Gazette about how retailers and others are recruiting teenagers to fill Summer jobs. Good look at a local American Eagle Outfitters location and how the manager there goes about recruiting new employees, as well as some of the methods used by others to fill other, non-retail, jobs.
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Over at Lightheavyweight, Finn has posted some excellent advice for recent college graduates who are seeking their first job. While geared towards recent college graduates in the design field, I think the advice is worth re-reading for anyone who is going through the job hunt at any stage of their career.
Two of his pieces of advice, “Be prolofic” and “Show your passion” are two things that I think are often forgotten by people as the grind of a job wears them down. During the first tech bubble in the 90’s, I remember looking around at some of the other people in my field who were just getting into technology for a quick buck. In 1998, a comp-sci degree became the new business degree and the industry was flooded with people who had no passion for development or the technologies they were creating.
I think Finn’s dished out some good advice, worth reading no matter what stage of your career you are in. Sometimes we need to look back and rekindle the passion that got you to love what you love, no matter what it is, in the first place. Whether it is design, development, marketing, customer relations, or any of the million other things people do every day, be passionate about what you do and never forget that.
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Circuit City has announced that they are cutting an additional 850 jobs, on top of the previously announced 3,400 jobs that they cut earlier this year. Now they are targetting store executives, cutting some stores down to 3 managers from the 5 that all stores had. They are also cutting 200 jobs at Circuit City corporate.
It is a shame to see any company cut jobs like this. I wonder if Circuit City has taken a look at the root of the problem – what caused the company to get to the point where they need to make this decision? Have they thought about their customer service policies? Their training? Their merchandise assortment?
When I talk to my tech-inclined friends about Circuit City, they all say the same thing: they don’t enjoy shopping there. Prices aren’t good and sales people are undertrained and unknowledgable. This isn’t a problem at one location; this is a problem across the chain. People don’t enjoy shopping there.
The retailer has also announced plans to open 165 new stores, after closing 60 earlier this year. The new stores will be a smaller, redesigned layout that is more customer-focused. Good, but is that too little too late?
No doubt that Circuit City can prove the layoffs as being a financial necessity right now. However, with some better forethough, some revamping, and some twaking of policies over the past few years, Circuit City could have remained competitive in the marketplace. Their underperfomance is nothing new. By constantly evaluating what is working and what isn’t over time, 4,000 people wouldn’t be out of a job today.
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Consumerist has a detailed report about a worker, who was fired from his job at Wal-Mart, based on a comment he left on MySpace:
The exact quote said “Drop a bomb on all the Walmarts, trailer parks, ghettos, monster truck shows, and retarded fake “pro wrestling” events, and the average I.Q. score would probably double.” This was a silly statement, but in no way was a threat as Walmart said and used as reason for my termination and denying my unemployment benefits. On my “Exit Interview” they checked Gross Misconduct – Integrity Issue (which they describe as: Theft, Violent Act, Dishonesty, or Misappropriation of Company Assets) as the reason I was fired. They wrote on the exit interview that it was a threat posted on website; which it clearly is not.
Consumerist provides a more more detailed account from the fired employee. The comments on the story provide an interesting debate and look at employee vs. employer rights, and how far the line extends outside of the workplace.
We live in a digital age and we have to be careful what trace of our lives we leave online.
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Wal-Mart faces more legal problems ahead. Today, the New Jersey supreme court has certified a class action lawsuit against the retailer for claims that the retailer denied workers’ meal breaks, forced them to work off the clock, and forced them to work on the breaks.
More from Forbes (NJ Court Certifies Wal-Mart Class-Action) and the Asbury Park Press (Wal-Mart to face New Jersey class-action pay suit).
This is probably not a good thing for Wal-Mart, as they have previously lost similar class action lawsuits in Pennsylvania and California (I talked about the PA verdict last year). These kinds of cases are a reminder to all other retailers that they have to stay on top of labor practices, and more importantly, they are responsible for what their store-level management is doing. I’m sure Wal-Mart is not the retailer that is at fault, but these high profile cases send ripples through the industry.
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Position opens up at a store and hypothetical person A expresses interest in it.
It is asked, “Why do you think you deserve the position?”
“Because I’ve been here two years.”
Wrong answer.
Time and time again I’ve watched people flounder in their career when they are approached about a possible promotion, and when asked the important question of why they deserve it, they answer with a reason why they are entitled to the promotion – not what they’ve done to earn it.
Instead of answering, “Because I’ve been here two years”, follow that up with what you’ve done in that time to earn it. “Because I’ve been here two years, and in that time I’ve overseen a sales growth of 10% per year, I’ve had two years of inventory numbers that have beat expectations, and I’ve trained every new employee to maintain a high level of excellence in their position.”
Employers don’t care about how long you’ve been there, they want to know what you’ve done in that time to WOW them. Two years doesn’t mean anything if the person who has been there six months has better results than you.
If your only answer as to why you deserve a promotion is “Because I’ve been here two years”, and you can’t solidify your results during that time, then you are going to be giving the same answer as to why you deserve a promotion at three years, four years, and five years.
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Oops. From NBCSanDiego.com:
A woman and her daughter filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Best Buy’s Geek Squad in which they accused a computer technician of videotaping the daughter while she was in the shower.
The mother said she hired the tech, who faces criminal charges, March 2 at the Best Buy in Industry.
Natalie Fornaciari said the technician used her daughter’s bathroom and allegedly positioned a cell phone camera in the room to catch the 22-year-old woman while she showered.
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Wednesday
January 3, 2007
The holidays have come and gone. The six day work weeks are over for me. For two months, I was spending upwards of 65-70 hours a week out of my house, due to work and the associated commute. The chaos that is the holiday season in retail did not leave me much time to blog, as you have seen. But that is all behind us and now the industry looks towards returns, inventories, markdowns, home/white sales, and trying to get back into shape for the new year.
Everyone is getting ready to release their December results this week. After a year that was mostly up for a lot of folks, how is December going to fair? Mild weather across most of the country and high(er) inventory levels has prompted analyists to downgrade several major retailers. I’m really interested to see who the winners and losers are this Holiday season.
Was there a must-have item this year that people clamored for? I didn’t really see anything.
Was it the TMX? How many of those dolls were actually produced and sold nationally? It seemed like more made it to Ebay than to actual store shelves.
Maybe it was the PS3 or the Wii? I don’t know how much electronic retailers like Best Buy will have really benefitted from those systems, due to low supply and the fact that their numbers for FY2005 include the Xbox 360 launch. One of my contacts at Target tells me that every time they got a shipment of a new game system, their camping/outdoor department benefitted the most from the sales of tents, chairs, and other supplies for the people waiting 3+ days outside for the new systems.
Anyway, for the time being I am back and hope to amuse you with some of my thoughts on this crazy industry.
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