Howard Davidowitz
Howard Davidowitz
catering classes customer familiar industry known opportunity retail within
Within the retail industry Federated is known for catering to the classes and May to the masses. For the May customer, it's an opportunity to get more upscale merchandise that a Bloomingdales' customer is familiar with.
customers help lean lure retailers year
Lean inventories won't help retailers this year if they can't lure customers into their stores.
best customer found gone loyalty product school store time
There is no loyalty to a store -- that's what Federated has gone to school and found out. The place with the best product at the right time and at the right price, that's where the customer loyalty is.
banking customer food opportunity ought sees toy
Wal-Mart sees banking as an opportunity to give the customer a better deal. That's what Wal-Mart's about. That's why they have demolished the food and toy industries. If it's better for the customers, then that's the way it ought to be.
customer generally sales target
If you look at Helen of Troy's customer base, sales are generally strong. Wal-Mart sales are up, Target sales are up,
biggest customers feed game gets million name traffic
In retailing, the whole name of the game is to feed off your competitors' footsteps. Wal-Mart is the biggest traffic generator around. It gets over 150 million customers a week.
coming creative customers longer retailers specialty stores true
This is specially true of the specialty stores. Retailers have to become more creative if they want to keep customers longer in their stores and if they want them to keep coming back.
ben chance charge customers full game later name promotion reasonable return taste
The name of the game for Ben and Jerry's is to get someone to taste the product. If this promotion can get more customers in the doors, there's a reasonable chance that many of them may return later (when they charge full price).
bad company musical performance
When a company has bad performance and new owners, look for musical chairs,
business mad promoted retailers
Those retailers who promoted like mad got the business and they won.
alley bowling business came complex essentials greatest running screaming
When Sears Essentials came in, you had a lot of morons running around screaming this was the greatest thing. I said it was a bowling alley with no customers. This business of going off-the-mall is much more complex than it looks.
controlled earnings expect expenses good gross happened inventory margins quarter retailers third together
What happened in the third quarter is that retailers controlled inventory and expenses tremendously. So expect to see pretty good gross margins and expect to see inventories down. Put it all together and earnings will be fair.
execution problem
The problem at Linens 'n Things is execution.
available billion companies equity private
The private equity companies have never had this much money. They have $125 billion available for acquisitions.