Word: ferkauf
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...slacks, which retail for $10 to $18, sell in Korvette's for several dollars less-but without the Pantino label. Jantzen and Catalina swimsuits-also stripped of labels-sell for 10% to 15% off regular retail prices, but the choice is limited. For the most part, Ferkauf relies on private-label soft goods put out for him by big-brand manufacturers. Korvette's calls them "compara-bles"; they include such items as Kayser-Roth "Nolde" nylons at $2.55 for three pairs, v. $4.05 for Kayser's better known "Kayser" hose, and Kentshire sheets by Pacific...
...Foot Race. While department stores throughout the land work on an average price markup of 36%, Korvette's prospers at 21%. How does Ferkauf do it? Self-service makes for fewer employees and lower wage costs: each Korvette employee accounts for an average $38,000 in business a year, nearly twice the average for big conventional stores. Employee markdowns are rare, and executive expense accounts (except for Ferkauf's $10,000) are painfully austere. If customers want alterations or home delivery of portable goods, they pay for it. (Credit is free because it more than pays...
...Favor." Though the low-markup, high-volume formula seems simple, it requires an artful balance of costs, prices and presentation. Ferkauf believes that "a store is like a theatrical production. The setting is vital in soft goods. We had to learn the hard way." Presiding over the presentation, and pursuing his goals of neatness and taste in a volume operation, Ferkauf spends most of his working days in an endless trek from one store to another, sparking The Boys to do just a little bit better...
...cases. In two weeks it's not worth a nickel. So why don't you have it all out now? You don't want we should get stuck with it, do you. Irving?" Initial Offer. In his private life as in his business, Ferkauf operates with uncluttered simplicity and directness. He proposed to his wife, blonde Estelle Silverstein Ferkauf, on their second date by presenting her with a small suitcase engraved E.S.F. "because that's what your initials will be because you're going to marry me.'' They live in a ten-room...
Workdays, Ferkauf gets up before 7 a.m. without an alarm clock, prepares his own breakfast, then washes the dishes, using rubber gloves. No matter how far he must travel to inspect one of his stores, whether to Hartford or Harrisburg, he is always home before the children bed down. Only six nights during the past 14 years has Ferkauf spent away from home-and four of them were on a recent business jaunt to Italy...