Stores don't need visual merchandising? End of an Era, visual merchandising will no longer exist in any significant way, stores will look like a warehouse, a messy warehouse. Bottom lines are essential yes, but HR leadership and the CEO made extremely poor judgments, it will hurt how the company will be perceived by customers in its appearance and customer service by keeping as many doors open, and slicing staff, merging skilled specialties with task driven jobs. Any store visit, new season or lagging sales were always assigned to visual to run and strategize how the company was going to increase sales. Any store visit whether good or bad was always based on the visual strength on the building. The same merchandise will be bought as it has for decades, not taking risks and continue to be a slave to GIII (Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, DKNY) who are a significant amount of the shareholders. The people that are all about spreadsheets (not saying that planners and buyers are not essential too) and don't look beyond their laptop screens and the are considered hero's. What good is merchandise in a department store if it cannot be shown at its best? Job cuts had to happen but Macys told everyone loud and clear that visual merchandising doesn't matter, they do not see it as a skill set. Once the stores are a dump, they'll realize, but it will be too late.