Macy's vet to oversee region

Another sad attempt by Lundgren and the MRHI board to put a band-aid over the huge gash they inflicted upon the Department Store industry!
At some point they will no longer be able to survive by closing stores, firing employees & selling off assets.
MyMacy's Localization is nothing more than a gimmick to try and fool customers into thinking Macy's has changed & a smokescreen to make the investors think the company knows what it is doing.
Lundgren & the MRHI Board are more interested in their ego's & their brainchild: "Macy's America's Dept. Store." Despite the fact that their game plan has failed miserably.....that they have lost customers due to their own arrogance regarding assortment & service...they continue to repeat the lie and say everything is going well.
Sending in a Macy's veteran to oversee the new regional organization of what was Marshall Fields should highlight this hubris. This is clearly their attempt to once and for all erase all remnants of Marshall Fields, and impose absolute compliance with the failed game plan.

Great, another New York snob telling Chicagoans what we don't want to buy in their junky stores. Do they really think we are all that stupid here? Does anyone really think "My Macy's" will work, it's at least their 5th advertising promotion since the change-over of Field's. It's so obvious yet the corporate suits in Cincy and NYC just don't get it. Bring back Marshall Field's in name and quality.
By the way, the windows at Sears State Street store far surpass the mess at Messy's Bargain Basement Bin. Most of the windows at Messy's are just bare or have "pardon our appearance";guess there are no employees left able to do the windows or they are all to busy swatting the fruit flies in the basement to prevent further shut downs from the City Health Inspectors!

This is absoulutely absurd! It won't work like nothing else has worked. Macy's keeps trying one idiot thing after another trying to deceive themselves into believing they can MAKE Chicago love them. We've had a year-and-a-half of their tacky arrogance. Chicago never said they wanted Macy's, still doesn't want Macy's and never said they wanted to get rid of Marshall Field's. Chicago wants Field's--simple as that!

Sorry they are not brining Field's back. Maybe if more people shopped at Field's it might not have been sold by Target and neither would May have not sold out to FDS. Look at the Wrigley Company, enough money will buy anything. Stop living in a fnatasy world and live in reality the present. May be Obama will bring Field's back he is promising everything else

Mike wrote:

Sorry they are not brining Field's back. Maybe if more people shopped at Field's it might not have been sold by Target and neither would May have not sold out to FDS. Look at the Wrigley Company, enough money will buy anything. Stop living in a fnatasy world and live in reality the present. May be Obama will bring Field's back he is promising everything else

Mike:

You are a Macy's apologist, plain and simple. While reading your post, I pictured you swaddled in Alfani and Club Room. If you are a native Chicagoan, then you should be embarassed that you are so willing to sacrifice local tradition and exist merely a customer of East Coast, Inc.

Kind Regards,

John

Mike wrote:

Sorry they are not brining Field's back. Maybe if more people shopped at Field's it might not have been sold by Target and neither would May have not sold out to FDS. Look at the Wrigley Company, enough money will buy anything. Stop living in a fnatasy world and live in reality the present. May be Obama will bring Field's back he is promising everything else

Also, lots of people shopped at MF. That's exactly why it traded hands so often in recent decades; because many recognized its past and future potential. Now, how's Macy's in Chicago doing in comparison? Not so well, huh?

I love it. The same old people writing the same tired comments. Field's is dead and gone. Show some maturity and move on already. This is pathetic.

Get over it wrote:

I love it. The same old people writing the same tired comments. Field's is dead and gone. Show some maturity and move on already. This is pathetic.

Thank you. In business it's called a free market. Some businesses come. Some businesses go.

What would everyone say if Field's closed and no other business set up shop? They'd probably stand in front of the empty store singing "Jingle Bells" pretending to see window decorations.

"He's giving up his [New York] Giants hat and putting on a [Chicago] Bears hat because he's so passionate that this is going to make a difference," Hoguet said.

Right there. There it is. They just DON'T get it.

D Chicago wrote:

<quoted text>
Thank you. In business it's called a free market. Some businesses come. Some businesses go.
What would everyone say if Field's closed and no other business set up shop? They'd probably stand in front of the empty store singing "Jingle Bells" pretending to see window decorations.

Yes I think so!!!!!!!!!!

Get over it wrote:

I love it. The same old people writing the same tired comments. Field's is dead and gone. Show some maturity and move on already. This is pathetic.

Andy? Don? What drives you to visit this topic time after time? Vested interest in the national Macyfication attempt?

John wrote:

<quoted text>
Also, lots of people shopped at MF. That's exactly why it traded hands so often in recent decades; because many recognized its past and future potential. Now, how's Macy's in Chicago doing in comparison? Not so well, huh?

It traded hands so often because it was not making enough profit for Target, and May Co. overpaid for Field's and realized after one Xmas season it would be tough to continue on, and better to sell out and make our stock profits than it was to go it alone. United airlines is trying the same senario as May Co did 3 years ago, however United is haveing a tough time doing it

Mike wrote:

<quoted text>It traded hands so often because it was not making enough profit for Target, and May Co. overpaid for Field's and realized after one Xmas season it would be tough to continue on, and better to sell out and make our stock profits than it was to go it alone. United airlines is trying the same senario as May Co did 3 years ago, however United is haveing a tough time doing it

...but how's Macy's doing in Chicago these days, Mike (in comparison to MF's numbers)?

My point...Wouldn't it have better to fix the business, if it was truly broken (and I don't believe that it was), rather than to arrogantly smash it and try mash it into Macy's, all to satisfy the egos of a few in NYC? Also, what can the appointment of a Macy's insider from NY do other than to further alienate Chicago area consumers?

Those are the salient questions here, Mike. I'm afraid that "Shut up and buy Alfani and the rebranded Frangos at one of any eight hundred Macy's across the country" isn't a convincing enough response for many.

Is Macy's and its apologists (located primarily outside of Chicago) too dense to realize that? Also, if you've moved on, why are YOU so fixated on this?

Macy's will NEVER make it in Chicago. Period. End of Story.

D Chicago wrote:

<quoted text>
Thank you. In business it's called a free market. Some businesses come. Some businesses go.

Yes, and Macy's will be one of those to go because they've made a bad business mistake and customers always have the right to shop elsewhere.

Here come the Field's zealots. They are in denial.

This is priceless! macy's claimed that the Field's rename and change of merchandise was necessary because they wanted to have a centralized organization to take advantage of economy of scale, i.e., uniform country-wide advertising and merchandise, one set of management and internal corporate departments, etc.

So NOW they have decided to do a 180 degree turnaround to "decentralize" to respond to "local consumer demands" because "many consumers were unhappy about their local brands morphing into Macy's stores."

NO S*** SHERLOCK!!!

LIKE MAYBE IN CHICAGO???

YA THINK???

Too bad macy's management was too damn arrogant and stupid when Chicagoans told macy's EXACTLY that before the Field's rename and degradation... about two years ago.

So now poor Mike Dervos gets the impossible task of turning Chicago around. What bad thing did you do that you got banished to Chicago,
Mike?

"He will be the highest level Macy's executive in the former Field's region and is charged with making the stores more in tune with local tastes."

Hey, Mike - putting on a Bear's cap won't do it. We're not so easily deceived.

(BTW Mike Dervos - are you our macy's shill "Mike" or "MikeA" who posts on these Tribune macy's message boards?)

Too little, too late to save your sorry macy's butt in Chicago!

As Frank would say - macy*s blows.

Wil Peterson wrote:

Here come the Field's zealots. They are in denial.

Here come the Field's detractors. They, like macy's, don't get it.

"He's giving up his [New York] Giants hat and putting on a [Chicago] Bears hat because he's so passionate that this is going to make a difference," Hoguet said.

Every so often, long comes that rare combination of arrogance and stupidity that causes one to really scratch their head and say "Wow!". Folks, Macy's takes the cake this time.

Reason would seem to dictate that, if they were serious about a localization campaign via "MyMacy's", they would have tried to find someone with at least a small measure of experience in the Chicago, Twin Cities and/or Detroit markets. You know, someone in tune with local tastes and all that.

Instead, they appoint some schmuck from Yonkers or Paramus, apparently a guy well accustomed to the crass merchandising of Macy's, Inc. What more could we really expect from the purveyors of Style & Co., Alfani and Donald Trump?

I spent my retail career at Macy's, Bambergers, Burdines, and Carson Pirie Scott. This is not a Macy's debacle alone. It is the final saga of the de-retailing of the retail industry. There are no merchants, no strong ops execs. The whole segment has been dumbed down by weak CEOs looking to line their own pockets on wall street rather than build sales with dynamic retailing. Shoppers are getting slammed by this economic downturn and this will kill off all the weak retailers. Very sad.