When Sears, Roebuck and Co. thinks about the business side of the Internet, the Hoffman Estates-based retailer thinks big: one giant Internet exchange where retailers around the world buy and sell everything from paper clips to high-fashion apparel.
That’s what Sears, software-maker Oracle Corp. and French retail powerhouse Carrefour SA hope to create with their launch of GlobalNetXchange, a business-to-business Internet market for retailers.
Lands’ End Corp., the Dodgeville, Wis.-based catalog company, likes the B2B side of the Web, too, but it’s moving forward one corporate customer at a time.
Take Saturn. The Troy, Mich.-based division of General Motors Corp. signed on in February to use Lands’ End as an apparel supplier for its dealership employees. In keeping with Saturn’s laid-back aura, salespeople wear knit shirts with Saturn logos and khakis, not plaid sports coats and polyester pants.
This month, Lands’ End set up a business-to-business Web site for Saturn. Through this on-line store, Saturn employees can place orders 24 hours a day for everything from mesh shirts and cotton sweaters to Polartec jackets and baseball caps–all with the carmaker’s logo.
This summer, enthusiastic Saturn customers who want to wear their car’s name on their chests will be able to do the same thing.
Saturn says it is very happy with the Lands’ End partnership so far. Women particularly like it because Lands’ End offers women’s sizes, rather than unisex sizes.
“With 40 percent of our top leadership being female, that’s important,” said Saturn spokeswoman Anne Desztich.
Lands’ End sees a big future for its on-line corporate stores. Already, it has created seven similar stores during the past 18 months, including one for Carolina Power & Light Co. and another for one of the country’s 10 largest mutual funds.
“We think every business order will touch the Web in some way, whether it’s setting up the logo or tracing the order status,” said Mike Grasee, Lands’ End’s director of Internet development for corporate sales.
“We want to provide self-help tools to the customer.”
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Below par: Tiger Woods may be the hottest golf phenomenon in decades, but his winner’s aura isn’t rubbing off on the retail golf business.
Last year marked the second straight decline in the golf equipment market, according to the National Golf Foundation, which tracks sales. Total 1999 golf equipment sales–including clubs, balls, bags, gloves and shoes–fell 7 percent in dollar terms.
Dollar sales declined faster than unit sales as retailers were forced to take deep markdowns to move merchandise. Talk about deflation: Titanium drivers are selling for about $100 less than they were two years ago.
Part of the industry’s current grief is a result of the boom years in the mid-1990s. Many duffers who upgraded their equipment with high-tech irons and putters don’t need new stuff. Likewise, many serious golfers replaced old metal-spiked shoes with new synthetic spikes in 1997-98. Shoe sales plunged in 1999.
What’s the cure to bring golf out of its rough patch?
The logical answer is bring more players into the game by keeping the price affordable, say $30 to $60 per round, the golf group believes. And that means building fewer $10 million golf courses and more $2 million ones.
Stepping aside: The announcement this week that Sears is looking for a successor to Chief Executive Arthur Martinez surprised many inside the organization.
Perhaps more surprising to some are Martinez’s plans after he steps down. Returning to New York, where he spent much of his career and raised his family, is not an option, he told the Tribune.
“We will be staying here in Chicago. We’re not moving to Florida, we’re not leaving town,” he said, adding, “I don’t expect to find myself in a large corporate setting again.”
Maybe he should run that by Allen Questrom. The former chief executive of Federated Department Stores Inc. felt the same way when he took early retirement in 1997 to travel the world.
But after two years, Questrom got antsy and signed on as chief executive of Barneys New York after it emerged from bankruptcy. Relaxing is a lot harder than it looks.
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Contact Susan Chandler at [email protected].