Word: retailing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Since war broke out on Jan. 16, crude prices have dropped from $32 per bbl. to $21 per bbl., but oil companies have been slow to cut retail gas prices correspondingly. This has fed anti-oil acrimony, but the industry argues that it is just making up for not hiking prices all the way during last fall's crude run-up. Even so, the average price of a gallon of unleaded is down to $1.18, only 10 cents higher than the day before Iraq invaded Kuwait -- and half that difference is from a nickel-a-gallon federal tax imposed...
...Mart's relentless efforts have yielded remarkably rapid growth. Just 10 years ago, company sales of $2.4 billion were less than 12% of Sears'. But in the past three years, while Sears' North American retail sales (including those from 131 Canadian and Mexican stores) have grown only 14%, from $28 billion to $32 billion, Wal-Mart's have doubled, from $16 billion to $32.6 billion. Sears' overhead expenses still consume 29% of sales, and K mart's 23%, but Wal-Mart's burn up only 16% of sales. Wal-Mart workers are more productive than Sears': they generate an average...
Sears executives bristle at comparisons with Wal-Mart. Says a spokesman: "We compete with Wal-Mart on only 30% of the goods we sell." Maybe that's part of the problem. Critics say Sears management has lost touch with its customers and its mission. As a result, several retail expansions during the past few years have failed. Examples...
...protect the label's image, Gucci cut off the majority of sales to department stores, and now limits distribution of most Gucci products to the company's 143 stores (although watches, perfumes and sunglasses are still sold in department stores and other retail outlets). To restore old-fashioned quality, hand-stitched leather products are being emphasized. And across the board, prices have been raised an average of 20% -- a fact that seems not to daunt a new generation of Gucci loyalists...
...partly because they perceive the discount centers as out- of-the-way places, suitable mainly for tourists or big-haul shopping. Luxury department stores like Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue take an elitist approach -- at least publicly -- and shrug off the challenge from outlet malls. "The competition in retail is always fierce, but our customer is not attracted to an outlet mall," says Carol Sanger, vice president of the Federated and Allied Stores chain, which includes Bloomingdale's, Burdine's, A&S and Jordan Marsh. She may be wrong about that. "I'd much rather go to a fancy...