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Home Textiles Today
July 25, 2011
> hometextilestoday.com
OPINIONTodaY Lost in Translation
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A R R EFOUR IS H AV ING a spot of trouble in China. The government has fined the hypermarket for claiming that the original prices on discounted merchandise were actually higher than they turned out to have been. Eleven of its 180 units have been fined $76,000 each. I guess the Chinese just don’t appreciate the good old-fashioned, Western style of flim-flammery we call marketing. A manufacturing executive in India, talking about his country’s retailing industry recentEDITOR-IN-CHIEF ly, observed: “You have sales every month. We have them two or three times a year.” India’s government is now preparing to open the door to outside retail giants, albeit with a bevy of strict rules. It will be interesting to see if promotional posturing is restricted or regulated. I started covering retailing nearly 20 years ago. At the time there was a great deal of concern about whether retailers were training customers to shop only for sale items. We all know how that turned out. Three U.S. retail chains — Macy’s, Williams-Sonoma Inc. and Crate & Barrel — are now making their way into the international market aboard multi-lingual, multi-national, multi-currency ecommerce platforms. They’ll surely experience some bumps along the way, but what they learn from consumers around the world will no doubt influence the designs and types of products they eventually will develop for the home market. It can be troubling to look at the International Monetary Fund projections that show share of U.S. GDP in the global marketplace declining as developing nations arise. But those ballooning BRIC figures also represent opportunity. Somebody’s going to sell to these new consumers. Why not you?
Jennifer Marks
HTT
What’s a Licensee To Do?
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ET ME SAY F IR ST, I think brands are the salvation of consumer products like home furnishings and if that brand just happens to be a licensed one, secured from outside the industry, all the better. That said, sometimes the business model of using a brand name based on actual human being can Warren an backfire … and sometimes it Shoulberg can backfire really badly. It’s quite possible we may PUBLISHER/ EDITORIAL DIRECTOR be seeing the latest example of that. Earlier this year Kohl’s announced with all due flourish that it had signed the husband-and-wife entertainers Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony to do a line of products for the store that would launch this fall. It was seen as a smart move by a store that, in my book at least, is known for making lots of smart moves. The Kohl’s stable of private label and captured brands is as strong as anybody’s in retailing today. However unlike an Ernest Hemingway, who isn’t around anymore, or a Betty Crocker, who was never around in the first place, J-Lo and Marc Whatever are very real people and they sometimes have very real problems that impact their very real lives. I don’t have the inside scoop on what’s actually going on with these two — not all journalists tap phones, Rupert, you know – but if in fact their marriage dissolves, it’s going to cause some very real headaches for the folks from Menomonee Falls, despite what Kohl’s is saying right now.
What’s new with Hollander?
A spokesperson for the company was quoted as saying the two brands are separate and have distinctive elements, so there’s no problem if they are not Mr. and Mrs. anymore. What would you expect them to say? They’ve got a lot of money tied up in this program, I bet, and with the goods sitting in containers now somewhere between over there and over here, they don’t have a whole lot of choice on what to do with this program. Even TJX can’t absorb this much close-out goods. If you’re starting to think of Tiger Woods — or for those with longer memories, O.J. Simpson — you’re getting the problem. When celebrities crash and burn — or at least get burned — it can be a pretty messy situation for anyone who has chosen to peg their business to that individual. Can you say Britney? Not that this means you stay away from licensed brands. Companies need brands to differentiate their products and to create the correct image for those products. Nothing does it better. For every one of these meltdowns there are usually ten brands that stay squeaky clean. And there are also more than enough Snoop Doggs out there where arrests, incriminating headlines and out-and-out character assassinations are not looked down on, but are actually considered marketing pluses. I feel for the folks at Kohl’s. They thought they had another winner in the works. And who knows, they may. But it’s certainly not going to work out exactly the way they wrote it down in the business plan. Stuff happens. Where’s the Acme Sheet and Towel line when you really need it? HTT
Hollander, the number one pillow supplier in North America gains momentum due to their FOB points. Simply put … “We have strategically positioned our manufacturing facilities throughout North America.” Stated Chris Baker, CEO of Hollander Home Fashions. “This allows shorter lead times, reduced freight costs to distribution centers and results in a smaller carbon footprint benefiting the environment.” Hollander has six manufacturing plants throughout the USA and one in Canada. w w w. h o l l a n d e r. c o m
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7/22/2011 6:25:06 PM