The evidence that store renovations pay for themselves continues to mount.
Paul Harris Stores, the Indianapolis-based, moderately priced women’s apparel chain, has been reinvesting in its 30 Chicago-area stores, expanding outlets on Michigan Avenue and in the State of Illinois Building.
Already its Michigan Avenue location is seeing double-digit gains in sales, despite the construction mess on the street out front. “Chicago is a very good market for us. It’s full of our core target customers: moderate-income working women,” said Charlotte Fischer, chief executive of Paul Harris.
But just making a store bigger isn’t enough, Fischer concedes. In response to customer surveys, Paul Harris has reconfigured its dressing rooms, putting up more hooks for clothes, adding chairs and taking the locks off the outside of doors.
It’s true. Paul Harris employees once were locking customers into dressing rooms to cut down on shoplifting.
By doing away with such unfriendly customer messages and pumping up Paul Harris’ color-coordinated groupings of private-label apparel, Fischer has accomplished an impressive turnaround.
Paul Harris, which emerged from bankruptcy in 1992, is on its way to posting record sales and earnings this year. Investors jumped on the bandwagon last year, bidding up its stock more than 1100 percent.
Within two years, Fischer promises that Paul Harris’ 251 stores will be a bona fide national chain. Being an apparel specialty retailer might not be such a bad niche after all.
Drop while you shop: Management at Woodfield Mall knows holiday shopping is stressful. The crowded parking lots, the long lines, the same Muzak Christmas carols playing over and over.
To relieve the tension, the mall has set up a “relaxation station” where shoppers can ease into massage chairs from the Sharper Image for a five-minute break. On Saturdays from noon to 1 p.m., they may partake of a five-minute massage courtesy of the Great American BackRub.
The relaxation station is located in the holiday service center on the upper level of the J.C. Penney wing next to Tannery West.
Sounds stressful just getting there.
Holiday bonus: It’s not really a surprising finding: Most employees would prefer cash from their companies as a holiday gift. That’s what 680 employees across the country told an independent survey commissioned by the Lands’ End Corporate Sales division.
But if they aren’t getting money, almost 80 percent said they prefer a gift certificate over a standard, company-wide gift. Almost one-third said they expect to receive a gift valued at more than $45.
More than two-thirds of employees said they wanted their gift to be a surprise. Among the most unusual gifts they received, employees listed live turkeys, tires, odd-shaped slippers and gasoline.
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The personal touch still counts. More than 80 percent of respondents said they wanted a personal note from their company president, not a photocopy of the same holiday platitudes.
Hint to CEOs: Invest in that fountain pen you’ve always wanted. You can expense it.
Fun facts: According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, the holiday song played most frequently at malls last year was “Jingle Bells”; the second–“White Christmas.”
The average number of full-time Santas employed per mall in 1996: 1.1. The average number of children who visited Santa Claus, per mall, last year: 17,745.
It’s enough to get you shopping on the Web.
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