False Advertising?

I just caught a great series of exchanges on Macy's lack of "ship-to-store" service. That's the priceless convenience of having your Macy's sales associate (me) contact another Macy's -- or more than one -- to obtain your merchandise. We have it all sent to our store, where I or some other sales elf organizes it into one package and calls you to say, "It's here! Come on in!" For this, we charge nothing. That's because my subtext, when I call, is "And while you're here for your pick-up, why not check out the great new whatevers that just arrived throughout the store."


I accessed this exchange via my new favorite website http://www.customersarealways.com/, by Maria Palma. But Maria was actually referencing Elaine Fogel at http://www.mpdailyfix.com/, from earlier this month, and a post called "Are Old World Retailers Meeting Customer Needs?". What caught my eye there, aside from the excellent initial post, was a comment from Victoria in response:

"Taking into consideration the cost of advertising, mailing ..."

Yes, Victoria -- you are on to something ! One of the reasons Federated elimimated historic local store names was to standardize national advertising. But they have no parallel commitment to standardizing the stores! On the contrary, they have a grid of luxury levels and store sizes into which we are being sliced and squeezed like the toes of Cinderella's poor stepsisters.



Doh!



Most egregiously, up here on the northern outposts of the USA, they completely eliminated our furniture department. They still make major local ad buys for the mattress promotions and other furniture events. They mail out entire flyers which display not one item available in or through our store! This inevitably leads to at least one customer per furniture event -- often with family in tow -- who has come to make a major purchase -- only to find they have wasted their gas, their time, and whatever they promised their kids for being quiet while the parents selected furniture.

I once heard that the first rule of successful advertizing is to be sure you have the product. Looks like somebody slept through that particular session at B-school.