Macy's closing 125 stores - victims of e-commerce.

Once a retailing King, Macy's will still have 400 department stores.

The company is also cutting roughly 2,000 corporate jobs, or 10% of corporate and support staff, and closing several offices. It will abandon a dual headquarters in Cincinnati—a structure Macy’s has kept since 1994 when it was still one of the country’s biggest retailers—and put all headquarters roles in New York. Macy’s, which will keep running about 400 of its namesake stores, is ramping up its restructuring efforts after a yearslong slump. Cobbled together from various regional chains, the company has struggled even as it left the weakest malls and boosted spending on e-commerce.

Once the backbone of America’s shopping malls, department-store chains like Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Sears have been losing customers to the convenience of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +2.27% and the discounts found at off-price chains like T.J. Maxx.

“Our goal is to reclaim and revitalize what a department store should be,” Macy’s Chief Executive Jeff Gennette said in an interview. “Department stores are still vital if they are done right. There is viability to having many categories and brands under one roof.”

The retailer is testing a new concept that will take it out of malls by opening smaller stores in strip centers, where more people are shopping. And it’s continuing to look for profits from its real estate, including an office tower that it plans to build on top of its Herald Square flagship in New York City.

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Mr. Gennette is opening new stores that will take Macy’s out of the malls. He plans to open smaller stores called the Market by Macy’s that will carry many of the same products and brands sold in a Macy’s department store, including apparel, accessories, home goods and beauty products.

The appeal of the new stores will be their location in shopping centers, which offer easy access off main roads, and their smaller size of about 15,000 square feet, which is one-tenth the size of a typical Macy’s, Mr. Gennette said.

Mr. Gennette said he plans to have four or five of the new stores open by year-end, including in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas, and Washington, D.C. The company will also open seven free-standing Backstage stores this year.

“Our brick and mortar strategy won’t be constrained by our mall presence,” Mr. Gennette said. “We have options to expand off the mall.”

Macy’s is continuing to divest and redevelop its existing real estate, the vast majority of which it owns outright or through ground leases. Over the past four years it has generated $1.6 billion in proceeds from real-estate transactions. The company expects real-estate proceeds to total roughly $130 million this year.

Comments

[Sweat]

Why couldn't they close just one more store, and make it 126? In failing to do so, it seems to Sweat that they've lost a great opportunity.

[Antigon]

:-)

[Sweat]

For the life of me I can't understand why they don't just close one more store, make it 126, and go for the gold! ! !