Probably no type of retailer is more challenged in adapting to changing lifestyles than department stores such as Dillard’s, May, and Federated. Caught in the vise of price competition from mass merchants and the segmented appeal of specialty stores, some retail analysts see the future for department stores about as bright as that of prehistoric dinosaurs.
Federated Department Stores is attempting to reinvent its future, however, by becoming a lifestyle brand. Its Lazarus store in Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, captured the National Retail Federation’s 2000 Store of the Year award for implementing a host of “Reinvent Strategies” based on its customers’ changing shopping preferences. With Federated’s global sourcing capability, the store’s brand represents not so much a place to buy products as a purchasing agent for the customer-finding the best mix of brands, products, and styles that the customer wants to buy. Included in the brand is the ability to stretch beyond what customers say they want now to something they might not know is available or possible. That’s where the surprise element, the unexpected, comes into play, leading to a moment when the customer may say, “I didn’t know about that style or that look, but I like it.” Federated’s energetic CEO Terry Lundgren explains, “Our
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Tags: department, preferences, shopping, stores
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