BERLIN — Introduced as a “true merchant prince” by Financo Inc.’s chairman, Gilbert Harrison, Bloomingdale’s chairman and chief executive officer, Michael Gould, emerged as the World Retail Congress’s most ardent humanist. For Gould, who was inducted into the World Retail Hall of Fame, retail is clearly “a people business. At the end of the day, it’s the quality of the people that makes one store different from another.… Human resources — that’s what our business is about.”
A store is about energy, he went on, “and the energy is the people, not the merchandise.”
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Gould said, “Someone asked me what I wanted to be remembered for. And it’s whether I gave everybody an opportunity to be more than they thought they could be. To give people an opportunity to grow, for self-discovery.” At the same time, he demands intellectual curiosity in the team he assembles. And passion. “We lose a lot of good people we interview if they don’t show what we perceive to be the Bloomingdale’s passion,” he said.
Despite the hundreds of listeners, Gould’s talk was like a living room chat, but one that nonetheless touched on some of the conference’s key themes. One of them was multichannel retailing, which is a “mantra” for Bloomingdale’s, he stated. “I’m in a multichannel business, and if the consumer wants to come online at 2 a.m. or shop in Dubai, I’m fine. I want them in my brand. To me, it’s about the brand. How we say hello, present ourselves.”
While he couldn’t break out figures on Bloomingdale’s current e-commerce business, he was comfortable lounging in the Macy’s Inc.’s quoted 40 percent growth. However, he did say that, at one time, 75 percent of Bloomingdale’s e-commerce business came from where the chain didn’t have stores. “Now it’s reversed — 25 percent of e-sales come from where we don’t have stores,” he said.
“We can say it’s a crossover business,” he continued. “Our research says that if a customer is shopping online and in the brick-and-mortar business with us, that person is worth 2.8 times more than a person who doesn’t shop with us. I want that customer anywhere it says Bloomingdale’s.… It’s multichannel. Not one or the other.”
Another recurring theme was Gould’s unbridled enthusiasm for the book “Mandela’s Way.” It has not only been given to all of Bloomingdale’s executives, but the retailer has bought 2,000 copies for various members of its staff.
“I think it’s the most fantastic book of life,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean all the characteristics he talks about are good for Bloomingdale’s. One of the words he dislikes is too emotional, and passionate. But I think to be successful, people have to have passion about what they’re doing. And compassion for people.”