Word: retailing
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...That may be why Citibank, the number four retail bank in the U.S., chose to launch its application without partnering with a carrier. The downside of this strategy is that the onus will be on the user to download the application, and even once they do, the Citi Mobile icon will be hard to find since it will be buried inside menus on each phone. When Wachovia launches its mobile-banking service later this year, on the other hand, its icon will get prominent placement on AT&T branded phones...
...Mexican help has been grossly underpaid by immigrant Korean deli owners, and immigrant African deliverymen had been getting $1.25 per hour at unionized Manhattan supermarkets (relying on tips) until authorities finally stepped in. "Wal-Mart's values are not New York's values," proclaimed Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union/UFCW. You got that right. Wal-Mart's regulations stipulate that every employee be paid for every minute worked. (Enforcement, obviously, is another issue...
...approach wrong. Here's the UFCW, which has been losing membership at a steady pace, turning down a historic opportunity. You can't organize stores that don't exist, Stu. Supermarkets have been pulling out of the city, not moving in, given the high costs and the competition from retail banks for the store space. And Wal-Mart has kicked the UFCW's ass all over the country - there's not a single union Wal-Mart store anywhere. Whatsa matter, Stu, you don't got game for those hicks from Arkansas? This is a union town. New York's cops...
Like all great merchants, Drexler is a relentless store walker, picking up details on operations, fashion and consumer behavior like so much lint. "You can get numbers, but there's no flavor," says Drexler, who fell in love with retail during a summer job at the now defunct Abraham & Straus department store exactly because he wasn't deskbound. After stints at Bloomingdale's and Macy's, he became ceo of Ann Taylor and revived the company, which got the attention of Gap founder Donald Fisher. It has all contributed to an almost eerie command of what's happening around...
...Crew's good news is evidence that Drexler's gift for knowing the right goods has returned. "There are perhaps four or five people in specialty retail who can, at a very high success rate, stand in a room of clothes and say, 'I like that--buy 10 of that. I like that--buy 10,000 of those,'" says Jim Coulter, the founding partner at Texas Pacific who recruited Drexler. Or, as J. Crew president Jeffrey Pfeifle says, "It's like allocating a portfolio--and Mickey is a great investor...