Just over a year ago I decided to leave Macys as a high level Dir. In the e-commerce. But first the backstory. E-commerce had been growing since my arrival by 32% year over year for 5 years. During that tenure there was a big push to streamline the distribution networks, improve upon exsisting platforms with little to no financial backing. We achieved great feats representing 10% of Macys overall earnings from 2013 up to last years peak seasons. A pretty impressive feat that represents a whopping $10 billion over 5 years of gross earnings.
But then in 2017 something changed on the D2C side. We where pushed to cut cost on aging buildings and systems instead of increasing budget as some of the network buildings where reaching end of life. As where the equipment to maintain a sustainable e-commerce sector.
When challenged I was met with stiff penalties and reprimands due to the development of the Backstage. However at that point backstage was only a concept. And all indicators had shown our core customers werent intrestead in having basically a "Goodwill" in the stores.
After that keybstake holders in the Direct 2 Consumer e-commerce areas where leaving as they felt they werent supported and the business objectives of doing more with less was near impossible as the network was already as streamlined and compact as possible.
They felt they could not be effective and started leaving 1 by 1 in until the last of the originators of the past 6 years where gone.
What's most interesting is that they allowed them all to leave without as much as an attempt to prevent them from walking.
What's even more interesting is that anyone that leaves a salaried position is also deemed "non-hireable" after leaving. Which in its self is crazy as they are the people who once put the company in prime position in the first place in 2014.
It's a shame that the e-commerce MLO top brass wouldnt allow for anyone other than the people they brought with them from Prieto to managers in the buildings to advance the technology and capability of the network. It very well could have been the saving grace for the whole company in last years and this years financial statements.
It's really no suprise the new distribution building going in is to support the backstage effort. I and investors are not really clear as to how backstage went from concept to in store to erecting a $300m building to support with such unfavorable feedback coming from the whole backstage consumer base.
Perhaps they visualized it in the VR experiance.
Best of Luck big M not getting steamrolled.
A little insider... Amazon has purchased and built/building 12 new mega centers to support apparel, shoes, fashion and fragrances for 2019 - 2021.
That will pretty much crush all retailers unless they pick up their game.