When Jeffrey Gennette talks to Wall Street about Macy’s Inc., where he is president, he paints a picture of a retailer that is disappointed with its recent results, but unbowed.
At the Goldman Sachs 22nd Annual Global Retailing Conference in New York Wednesday, Gennette said, in effect, that Macy’s is getting better at both new-school and old-school retailing, building a better online business while sharpening the in-store experience and catching as much of the fashion trends as possible.
And the trends seem to be circling back to an old favorite.
“There are definitely signs of life in the denim business,” he said. “Denim is back. We started to see this in all of our testing last year and really all the way through the spring season. Gave us a lot of the confidence with a lot of different brands with a lot of the different styles. We’re bringing it back in significant ways and new denim bars that we were creating in all of our ready-to-wear floors starting this holiday.”
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Denim companies have had their fingers crossed that the second half would mark a turning point for the segment, which lost much of its oomph as activewear sprinted into the lead. Gennette said activewear remains hot as well.
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The retailer is looking to get more out of its store base, which is set to become smaller as weaker locations are weeded out, and is also bringing in new partners for leased departments, such as Best Buy and Men’s Wearhouse. And it has a fine-jewelry test in 40 stores in Southern California, among other initiatives.
While the company is solidly in the middle of retail’s price range, the company is trying to capture as much profit margin as possible as consumers shift in and out of styles.
“We stand for fashion and we do our homework,” he said. “So we test trend categories and early-adopter stores like Los Angeles, New York City, always online.…We also plot selling on a trend curve, and what’s hot in Miami in the beginning and is going to be cold in the middle of the country.”
Gennette said 60 percent of store purchases are influenced by online interactions, a share that’s risen from 50 percent a year ago. And the digital influence on store sales is expected to keep climbing. So the company is focusing on continuous mobile app development, scanning features, beacon technology, location recognition, new ways to find goods through visual search and 3-D printing at the Herald Square flagship.