This month, Macy’s unveiled the first episode of a new monthly video series with our CEO called Beyond the Boardroom with Jeff Gennette. Coast to Coast is excited to follow Jeff as he goes beyond the boardroom to talk with Associates about our North Star Strategy and how we are working together to drive our business forward.
Each month, as Jeff focuses on a specific topic, Coast to Coast will bring you a feature where we will drill into more detail from the show – this episode, we’re diving into the exciting, complex and changing world of cosmetics and beauty!
If you haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, check out the episode below where Jeff focuses on our Next Generation of Stores initiative which was captured from our Macy’s Woodbridge Center store.
As you saw in this episode of Beyond the Boardroom, Jeff spoke with Nicole Rozakis, VPSM, and Katie Dispenziere, Cosmetics Sales Manager, at Woodbridge Center about some of the exciting changes going on in cosmetics in Woodbridge. That is just one part of this huge cross-functional effort in our organization to strengthen our beauty business. Coast to Coast sat down with Nata Dvir, SVP Planning, Beauty to learn more about these changes from a Merchandising perspective and take a deeper look.
The beauty reinvent is our vision for what we think the beauty shopping experience is and should be for our customer. For Macy’s, it’s a shift away from being a brand centric model to a customer centric model.
At Macy’s, beauty has always been focused on brands and our beauty advisors being the experts for one specific brand. But now, our customer is the expert, they are equipped with tools like YouTube to give them the knowledge they crave. So by shifting our model to be more customers centric, it will allow us to give the customer the environment and experience to discover and play across different brands. The beauty reinvent does just that by incorporating open floor plans, a curated selection, and room for our customers to discover and play. It also includes having our Associates out in front of the counters, on the floor to help our customer solve, in an interactive experience that goes beyond selling.
The market is growing; in fact, the beauty business is one of the fastest growing businesses in the retail industry. Reinventing the store experience is so important in this category because while online purchases are growing, brick and mortar is still 90% of the business and there is growth in stores to be had. We need to ensure our fair share of the growth, so we are looking at what our customer is craving, and creating an environment to meet her needs.
On the other hand, Macy’s is already the fragrance destination. We have a large share of the market and our customer loves the brands we carry. We are winning in fragrances and we need to make changes in cosmetics so we can win in that market, too.
For the beauty reinvent, we are testing out many changes; I’ll talk about four of the big categories we are working change into.
A big change in beauty is in the presentation. We are working to create an open environment and floor plan. We are opening up the fixtures and removing barriers – exactly like what you saw at Woodbridge Center. By opening up the floor, we are encouraging the customer to play with the products, and we are allowing the Associate to be in front of the products and remove the barrier between the two of them to help our customer solve her beauty needs.
Another exciting change in beauty is training. We are introducing “The Beauty Playground”, a training program which we have partnered with our Learning & Development team at Macy’s to create. Historically in beauty, our Associates were only trained by the vendors on specific brands. Now, with The Beauty Playground, our beauty Associates will get the cross brand training and knowledge that they need. By giving our Associates the tools and knowledge to cross brand sell, we are giving them the confidence to solve our customer’s needs.
We’re also adding a variety of changes around creating experiences for our customers. One element to this is a special role that’s being created in the test stores called an “Experience Leader.” This will be a Leader on the beauty team that helps create experiences for our customers including planning beauty tutorials and classes.
And lastly, we are editing the assortment in fragrance. We want to bring more clarity to the amazing brands we carry in fragrance. We updated and elevated the visuals to create cleaner distinctions between the brands.
Woodbridge Center is the first store to roll out these changes! In September, we are rolling this out to 73 stores in the South and Southwest across five districts.
We are learning a lot. We’re learning how to merchandise the new format of beauty floor to make for more compelling curated footprints and allow for customer discovery. And above all, we are learning how to give our beauty customers the service she’s looking for to help her solve, by removing barriers and using cross-brand knowledge.
At the end of the day, in this new model, what does success in beauty look like from a customer experience perspective?
Success is when Macy’s is the authority for beauty and the customer is getting the service she expects.
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In the first episode of Beyond the Boardroom with Jeff Gennette, our new monthly video series, Jeff and the team at our Woodbridge Center, NJ store gave us a look at an exciting technology pilot– e-signs in Women’s Shoes! Following your feedback, we’re giving you a closer look at the e-signs in action.
In his early days as CEO for Macy’s, Inc., Jeff Gennette asked our Associates for their Bright Ideas. Read on to see what we are doing to turn those Bright Ideas into action and how our top 70 leaders demonstrated quick decision-making.
“We put a lot of effort into upgrading the Macy’s app to give our customers the best possible shopping experience whether online or in our stores. It’s exciting to see the way users are responding to those changes, and it’s to the credit of the extremely talented people in our technology teams who lead us ahead of the industry in this area.” – RB Harrison, chief omnichannel officer
What is the definition of the iconic, American department store in the 21st century? This month, the definition contains a new word: Apple.
Coast to Coast is a digital resource to discover behind-the-scenes insights into the exciting world of Macy’s, Inc. – including Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s Backstage, Bloomingdale’s The Outlet and Bluemercury. Coast to Coast highlights company news, and includes features on people, innovation, business, diversity and inclusion, and of course, fashion.
I'm also proposing the game PIMPVOC (Passengers in my Private Vehicle off Countdown) for any car owners who have given lifts to Countdowners/apterites.
Mark is going to absolutely smash that one. I look forward to him starting the thread just to try and remember a list.
I was staying at Tom's for CoLeeds last year and we had a few bevvies, some at Bradford Spoons and some at Bingley Spoons. We were trying to convince Sophie to come on the razz with us in Bingley Spoons but she got shy and embarrassed about the thought of being seen with us (understandable) in a pub. (She was also 15 at the time so that might have been a factor.) So we decided to take the party to them, via the most disgusting hill you've ever seen (no but seriously, I was limping for 3 days because it had cocked up my leg muscles so much).
Turned up at their house sweating like a gorilla after walking up the hideous hill, but the Krol clan still let us in. So Tom and I were hangin with Mama, Papa and Joseph Krol in their lounge and Sophie eventually joined us and she was so shy but adorable!! I was a bit awkward because I had to tipsily filter what I was saying (#NoFilter) but also referring to in-jokes/gossip that Joseph wanted to know more about, when the details weren't necessarily parent-friendly. Joseph made a lot of references to how great Tim Farron was. Tom and Joseph made maths in-jokes. Sophie knew a lot of details of one of the soaps (might have been Coronation Street, but can't remember now) and got quite animated about it. We left at about midnight, although I couldn't find where Big Roman Krol had put my coat, which delayed our exit.
Stop dissing my endz, yo. You learn to love the hill after walking up and down it a couple of times a day.
So you basically groomed a young girl on the internet, pressured her into underage drinking and then turned up at her home for God-knows-what. Why don't you have a seat over there?
You'd struggle to find somewhere more disablist than Tom's student accom. His room is up 3 flights of stairs, and the bathroom is up another flight of stairs. #PrayForZ
Can now add to this - Matt Morrison and Heather Badcock (repeatedly), Graeme Cole, and, if he counts, David Stainer. Stainer can also now be counted towards my COCMEAT as I have met him four times, including once by mistake on Friday. As I was getting up to get off a train, I was fairly sure I saw him sitting in the carriage, reading a book. I had burned through the last of my mobile data earlier that day, so was on the train's own WiFi. I sent him a Facebook message saying, "are you sitting on a train reading [insert name of book] right now?" And then I got off the train. Of course, I forgot that getting off the train and the train pulling away meant a loss of data and thus communication. It turns out it was indeed him, but I was unable to read his response and reactions or explain why I had said what I said for a good 20 minutes until I found a BP garage with more free WiFi with which to explain myself. So basically I freaked him out a bit. My bad.