This is one of the funniest and strangest stories I’ve seen in the media recently, and with the blog redesign eating up much of my available blogging time, I didn’t get a chance to write about it when it first broke.
Macy’s reported sluggish sales last quarter and their CFO blamed it on the fact that women don’t want to dress up to go to Macy’s anymore. From Consumerist:
Macy’s reported 1.8% increase in revenue last quarter to $9.36 billion fell short of analyst expectations, and it’s the fault of those makeupless women and millennials shopping with mobile devices, Macy’s CFO Karen Hoguet explained during an industry conference on Tuesday, as reported by MarketWatch.
“We did some consumer research, and the customers said, she likes going to the off-price retailers because she doesn’t have to put lipstick on,” Hoguet said, according to a transcript of the event cited by MarketWatch, implying that said customer would feel pressured to slap on the war paint to go to Macy’s.
Ouch. When are marketers going to stop making gross generalizations about women? (Reading this gave me shades of Jewel-Osco’s ill-fated Project SHE from a few years back.)
I can tell Macy’s why people aren’t shopping there — their sale prices aren’t as good as they’ve been in the past, and they don’t offer as many coupons as they used to. It’s pretty simple. There’s plenty of competition in every one of the categories Macy’s sells. When shoppers can find what they need elsewhere at better prices, that’s where they’re going to go.
Implying that women should be putting lipstick on to go to Macy’s also strikes me as an elitist statement… but most Macy’s locations are in shopping malls. When’s the last time you got dressed to the nines to head to the mall?
Leave a Reply