Word: chain
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...Topshop formula is proving not just popular, but profitable, too. The chain made around $200 million in pretax earnings last year on revenues of approximately $1.14 billion. That's about half the total profits and a third of sales at the privately owned Arcadia Group. It wasn't always this way. As recently as the late 1990s, says Nick Bubb, a retail analyst at Pali International in London, profits were as little as one-tenth last year's haul...
...weeks after suppliers have received the order. The result: Topshop debuts hundreds of new pieces in its London flagship outlet every week. And if the emphasis on speed and stylishness means Topshop's togs are a bit more expensive, then so be it. That's a premium the chain's customers have come to expect and are willing to pay for. "If we can get it in four weeks in the U.K., we'll buy it at four weeks in the U.K. rather than buying it cheaper" elsewhere over a longer time frame, says Karyn Fenn, Topshop's other joint...
...Stockholm, he says, Scandinavia still holds tremendous potential. But to grow much larger, Topshop will have to make some radical changes. Today, no matter where its smock dresses or miniskirts are stitched together - or where they're destined - everything passes through the U.K. "The existing franchising model and supply chain would not work for significant global expansion and will need to be adapted," Green says. To construct an efficient, decentralized distribution system is a logistics puzzle management is now attempting to solve...
...surprising that T.G.I. Friday's and the Cheesecake Factory have begun offering small-portion options. When Ruby Tuesday tried to position itself as the healthy chain restaurant by cutting back on serving sizes and printing nutritional info on its menus in 2004, customers hated it so much, the small sizes were dropped within five months...
...that it inoculates the audience against being spellbound, training them to wait for the other shoe to drop whenever they see a moment of sentiment or magic. Every detail argues against seeing fairyland as something special, like the constant disposable-culture gags in Shrek, in which characters shop in chain stores like Versarchery and Ye Olde Foot Locker...