Department Stores, This Is No Time for Grave Dancing -- Heard on the Street
Department Stores, This Is No Time for Grave Dancing -- Heard on the Street
DJ Department Stores, This Is No Time for Grave Dancing -- Heard on the Street
DJ百貨商店，現在不是掃墓跳舞的時候--在街上聽到
By Jinjoo Lee
作者：李振珠
Surviving department stores are hoping to gain market share from weakened competitors. They might not want to get their hopes up.
倖存下來的百貨商店希望從實力減弱的競爭對手那裏獲得市場份額。他們可能不想抱太大希望。
By mid-July, the number of 2020 bankruptcy filings for retailers -- specifically, those seeking relief through a restructuring rather than liquidating their businesses -- had exceeded 2019's full-year numbers. These include department-store names such as J.C. Penney, Gordmans parent Stage Stores and Neiman Marcus.
截至7月中旬，零售商-具體地説，那些通過重組而不是清算業務尋求救濟的零售商-2020年的破產申請數量已經超過了2019年的全年數字。其中包括J.C.Penney、戈德曼Parent Stage Stores和內曼·馬庫斯(Neiman Marcus)等百貨商店名稱。
Such headlines have led solvent department stores, including Macy's, Kohl's and Nordstrom, to declare this a chance to gain market share. It won't be easy.
這樣的頭條新聞導致梅西百貨(Macy‘s)、科爾百貨(Kohl’s)和諾德斯特龍(Nordstrom)等有償付能力的百貨商店宣稱這是獲得市場份額的機會。這不是一件容易的事。
Take the year 2012, when J.C. Penney lost 25% of its revenue year over year after undergoing an unsuccessful restructuring of the business. None of the competing department stores enjoyed much benefit: That year, Macy's, Nordstrom and Kohl's all recorded sales growth pretty much at the same level as the previous one. Instead, off-price retailers were the ones that gained share: T.J. Maxx parent TJX Cos. doubled its revenue growth during the same period, while Ross Stores logged a roughly 35-percentage-point bump to its sales growth.
以2012年為例，J.C.Penney在經歷了一次失敗的業務重組後，收入同比下降了25%。沒有一家競爭對手的百貨商店享受到太多好處：那一年，梅西百貨(Macy‘s)、諾德斯特龍百貨(Nordstrom)和科爾百貨(Kohl’s)的銷售額增長几乎與前一年持平。相反，獲得市場份額的是低價零售商：T.J.Maxx母公司TJX Cos。同期收入增長翻了一番，而羅斯百貨(Ross Stores)的銷售額增長了約35個百分點。
"Department stores tend to sell products that others also sell. So if you can't engender a high amount of loyalty with a private-label credit card or a great experience, what we found over time is that many consumers will just price compare," notes Lorraine Hutchinson, analyst at BofA Global Research. Particularly in times when consumers have thinner wallets -- as many do now -- chances are high that shoppers will divert their dollars to cheaper destinations.
美國銀行全球研究(BofA Global Research)分析師洛林·哈欽森(Lorraine Hutchinson)指出：“百貨商店傾向於銷售其他公司也在銷售的產品。因此，如果你不能通過自有品牌信用卡或良好的體驗獲得高忠誠度，我們發現，隨着時間的推移，許多消費者只會進行價格比較。”特別是在消費者錢包變薄的時候--就像現在的許多人一樣--購物者很可能會把錢轉移到更便宜的目的地。
Plus, customers spread out their shopping dollars across a pretty large pool of retailers: A store closure from one business, for example, tends to result in those dollars being spread across 10 to 12 different retailers, according to Jay Sole, analyst at UBS.
此外，根據瑞銀(UBS)分析師傑伊·索爾(Jay Sole)的説法，顧客將購物資金分散到相當大的零售商池中：例如，一家企業的門店關閉往往會導致這些美元分散到10到12家不同的零售商身上。
Many retailers that undergo bankruptcy don't simply cease to exist, at least not in the near term. J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus are among the companies that plan to emerge from bankruptcy with many stores intact.
許多經歷破產的零售商並不是乾脆就不復存在了，至少在短期內不會。J.C.Penney和Neiman Marcus等公司計劃在許多門店完好無損的情況下襬脱破產。
Based on experience, existing department stores will have to come up with some compelling traffic drivers or really focus on their off-price segment to reap any benefits from weakened competition. One successful example was Kohl's, which gained market share after Bon-Ton's liquidation in 2018, according to Ms. Hutchinson. Kohl's sales growth tripled that year but it took some creative solutions, including an Amazon returns program and a pilot program in which it subleased a portion of stores to traffic-driving retailers such as Aldi.
根據經驗，現有的百貨商店將不得不想出一些令人信服的交通司機，或者真正專注於他們的低價部分，才能從減弱的競爭中獲得任何好處。哈欽森説，一個成功的例子是Kohl‘s，它在2018年Bon-ton清算後獲得了市場份額。那一年，科爾的銷售額增長了兩倍，但它採取了一些創造性的解決方案，包括亞馬遜退貨計劃和一個試點計劃，即將部分門店轉租給阿爾迪(Aldi)等流量驅動型零售商。
Perhaps the best gift that bankrupt retailers can give their peers isn't easy market share but lessons on what hasn't worked. Surviving department stores will find themselves in trouble if they don't adopt some radical measures.
也許破產的零售商能給同行的最好禮物不是輕鬆的市場份額，而是從失敗中吸取教訓。倖存下來的百貨商店如果不採取一些激進的措施，將會發現自己陷入了困境。
Write to Jinjoo Lee at jinjoo.lee@wsj.com
寫信給李錦珠，電子郵件：jinjoo.lee@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
(完)道瓊通訊社
September 21, 2020 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)
2020年9月21日東部時間07：00(格林尼治標準時間11：00)
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