New York City to open first outlet mall

New York City is going to open its first outlet mall in Staten Island late next year according to a CNBC report today.

Staten Island Empire Outlets

Staten Island is only 25 mins ferry-ride from Downtown Manhattan. With its location advantage and less rent compare to Downtown Manhattan, the Staten Island’s Empire Outlets will attract not only shoppers but also retailers. The opening of it will have various effects to local retail stores, shopping mall and nearby outlet centers, like Woodbury and Jersey Gardens Outlet Malls, to name a few. Some of casinos in near states will also be affected, since some of customers were attracted to casinos’ outlet shopping center.

But it’s a great news to New Yorkers, as they will soon no longer need to travel a long distance to shop for good value luxury. I just hope that the tax rate can be a lower or even exempt for the outlets.

Real estate, a great opportunity for real estate investors and developers. In recent years, there are many projects undertaking in Staten Island already, adding this outlet project, I am sure Staten Island will be a hot place for real estate investment.

Wal-Mart’s new strategy – focus on low price and take away some promotional aisle display

The content Below is from Food Dive, please refer to the original article for more detail.

Wal-Mart’s promotional changes influencing packaged foods companies

  • Wal-Mart Stores is shifting its promotional strategies, which has entailed abandoning some in-store product displays positioned at the end of aisles and near the checkout areas. This change is ultimately affecting certain packaged foods companies.
  • Wal-Mart wants suppliers to take the money they would have invested in displays and spend it on cutting costs that will contribute to lower prices. These prices are necessary for Wal-Mart per its current business model and focus on providing “everyday low prices.”
  • For Mondelez, Q1 revenue in North America fell “largely due to a change in a large customer’s in-store strategy that reduced merchandising and display opportunities,” its CEO Irene Rosenfeld told analysts and investors, reports Crain’s Chicago Business.

Wal-Mart is clinging to its low-prices mantra as other grocery retailers slashed prices during the recession. Wal-Mart is cutting costs wherever possible to bring traffic back into its stores and increase the sales and market share the company lost to those retailers.

Getting products in front of consumers could now prove more difficult due to the lack of display space. “The consistent message we heard was that packaged food companies needed to do a better job getting products in front of consumers and be more creative in terms of product positioning,”Morningstar food industry analyst Erin Lash said at a trade show according to Crain’s Chicago Business.

Personally, I don’t see much benefits of this new strategy. So far, I think Walmart’s biggest problem is that it doesn’t understand its customers! Although it’s good that they are clear about their positioning, but the market has changed now, staying with the previous positioning will do no good to Walmart.

Listen to your customers! Get to know them and find out what they are looking for, this is extremely important to Walmart’s future success. Look at what Target’s new CEO did. The first thing he did when he was announced for the CEO role, he went to one of the Target store and surveyed Target’s customers. He not just listen to customers’ opinions but also adopted those constructive feedback.

Why are Wegmans, Whole Foods and other competitors in the market are doing well in the past few years? They not only did what was mentioned above, but also treat customer’s as their first priority. Excellent customer service, fresh and natural organic food that customers can choose from, more importantly, they always evolving themselves according to customers’ needs.

For Walmart, the second most important thing is to follow the trend while maintain a lower price, not necessary the lowest. With the size and number of store locations, Walmart has more advantage to achieve it compare to other competitors.

Customer service is important, but not necessary in the way of increasing minimum wage. I never believe how will increasing minimum wage will help Walmart’s customer service. One, being the largest retailer in the world, there are many advantages of it and it also comes with disadvantages, which one of it will be the difficulty in increasing wage for its employees. My suggestion to that, is to build a customer service system, where customers can easily rate the service that was provided by the cashier or other staffs in the store. Then a scale of 1-5 or 1-10 can help Walmart to measure its employees performance, and the monthly or biweekly bonus is depend on that score. Some simple measurement like this can do much good to Walmart than increasing customer service. If Walmart ever learns HR 101, it will find the reason behind this solution.

So much can be shared regarding Walmart’s operation, but these should be good just for the article from Marketing Dive.

Any feedback are extremely welcome.

Lesson Learned from MK & Coach

Summary: Michael Kors (MK) and Coach are two famous light luxury fashion brands. Coach is performing well until the entry of Michael Kors and its fast store expansion. In the past few years, MK becomes so popular which even go public on 2011 and many investors and analysts have strong confidence in its growth. Things went well for couple years until MK followed the same old disastrous path that Coach walked.

Key lessons/takeaways:
  • Fast expansion plan could kill a firm. Expansion plan should be well designed and managed, same brand stores cannibalizing others sales’ situation should be avoid by well designed business (expansion) plan
  • Differentiation is a key to success nowadays. This can be applied to the entire fashion industry and even within the company. Product development should align with the positioning of the brand itself as well as its channel of distribution.
  • Inventory is the key. Profit margin can be easily staled due to the poor inventory control. This also relates to a good and accurate sales forecast.

Below is the original article from Fortune.com, you can click here to read more

Michael Kors’ weak sales suggest it’s falling out of fashion

The once red-hot fashion brand reported a surprisingly sharp decline in comparable sales, suggesting its aggressive expansion is hurting Kors’ luxury aura.

When you’re a red-hot aspirational luxury brand, it’s tempting to capitalize on the moment with aggressive expansion plans and a broader assortment of products to become a so-called “lifestyle” brand.

But that strategy eventually and inevitably leads to brand fatigue, as Michael Kors KORS -23.49% — the brand whose founder rose to cultural ubiquity a few years ago on TV’s Project Runway — is learning the hard way.

Its stock was taking a beating on Wednesday morning after the fashion company posted weak financial results. Its shares are down almost 50% from an all-time high of $97.60 a few months ago.

Michael Kors reported an unexpected 5.8% decline in stores open a year or more, including a 6.7% drop in North America, its biggest market by far. Analysts had been expecting a North American increase in such comparable sales — a widely accepted measure of a retailer’s health — of 3%, according to Consensus Metrix.

The company, long a Wall Street darling, had gotten investors used to seeing 20%+ growth rates in comparable sales since it went public in late 2011. It has been one of the fastest growing brands in recent years, stealing market share away from its handbag rival Coach COH -4.87% .

To ride its wave of popularity, Kors has been on a store-opening rampage, adding 121 new stores in the fiscal year that ended March 28 alone, bringing the total to 526. That represents a 30% increase in just one year, and a doubling in just two years. And that doesn’t even include the spaces it has in department stores like Macy’s M -0.07% and Nordstrom JWN -0.63%

The comparable sales declines suggest that Kors’ stores are eating into each others’ sales.

The Kors strategy contrasts with that of Coach. Seeking to regain the aura of luxury it squandered by having too many new stores and relying too much on outlets, Coach is closing 20% of its North American stores to better focus on locations in key markets and its flagship stores, rather than those in malls. It is also laying off its logo-centric merchandise and focusing on the higher end.

Kors, which also sells shoes, eyewear, watches, jewelry and fragrances, has several brands to cater to the high end, the middle market, and discount outlet shoppers, the latter of which could end up cannibalizing its pricier items and damaging its luxury aura. (Again, just look at Coach.)

That very omnipresence is starting to damage the Kors brand, experts say.

As Rahul Sharma, founder of London-based Neev Capital and a retail expert, put it in a tweet this morning: “If your marketing strategy is largely based around [the] ‘jetset’ loving younger female shopper, remember she can be rather fickle.”

And Kors’ problems look set to continue: The company forecast “double-digit” percentage decreases in comparable sales this quarter, suggesting things are getting worse for the company, whose operating profit as a percentage of sales is declining.

What’s more, the company’s inventory is up 21.8%, with overall sales rising only 17.8% (Kors’ international push explains much of that growth), suggesting another renewed sales shortfall will mean more sold at clearance, further hurting its profit margins.

Analysts for years have been saying Kors should slow its growth. But shares rose five-fold from $20 in its IPO in 2011 to $100 in the past year, making it tempting to push ahead.

“The seductive thing about the Kors-type of ‘hot’ trajectory is in the initial delight of consumers,” veteran retail expert Robin Lewis said in an April blog post, referring to how accessible the brand is and how much people want it.

Then, “all of a sudden, in a nano-split second, the largely young and trend-fickle consumer base wakes up and realizes the brand is slapped on everything and is being worn by everybody, everywhere. And, crash! Wonderful becomes awful. The brand stands for nothing for anybody – everywhere.”

That is something that Kors, like Juicy Couture, Tommy Hilfiger, Coach and countless others before it, is now learning.

25 Best Cities For Jobs – from Glassdoor

25 Best Cities for Jobs

  1. Raleigh, NC – Glassdoor Job Score: 4.1
  • Number of Job Openings: 24,146
  • Population: 1,242,974
  • Median Base Salary: $50,950
  • Median Home Value: $198,400
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.3
  1. Kansas City, MO – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.9
  • Number of Job Openings: 28,786
  • Population: 2,071,133
  • Median Base Salary: $46,000
  • Median Home Value: $138,500
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Oklahoma City, OK – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.9
  • Number of Job Openings: 16,759
  • Population: 1,336,767
  • Median Base Salary: $38,100
  • Median Home Value: $129,400
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.3
  1. Austin, TX – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.9
  • Number of Job Openings: 33,198
  • Population: 1,943,299
  • Median Base Salary: $50,000
  • Median Home Value: $226,400
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.3
  1. Seattle, WA – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.9
  • Number of Job Openings: 69,423
  • Population: 3,671,478
  • Median Base Salary: $70,000
  • Median Home Value: $344,700
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.3
  1. Salt Lake City, UT – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.8
  • Number of Job Openings: 17,970
  • Population: 1,153,340
  • Median Base Salary: $44,000
  • Median Home Value: $224,000
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.4
  1. San Jose, CA – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.7
  • Number of Job Openings: 51,439
  • Population: 1,952,872
  • Median Base Salary: $99,000
  • Median Home Value: $863,800
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.5
  1. Louisville, KY – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.7
  • Number of Job Openings: 16,295
  • Population: 1,269,702
  • Median Base Salary: $40,000
  • Median Home Value: $131,100
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. San Antonio, TX – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.7
  • Number of Job Openings: 29,980
  • Population: 2,328,652
  • Median Base Salary: $40,000
  • Median Home Value: $147,600
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.3
  1. Washington, D.C. – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.7
  • Number of Job Openings: 116,770
  • Population: 6,033,737
  • Median Base Salary: $61,000
  • Median Home Value: $361,200
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.4
  1. St. Louis, MO – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.7
  • Number of Job Openings: 31,365
  • Population: 2,806,207
  • Median Base Salary: $45,000
  • Median Home Value: $133,200
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.3
  1. San Francisco, CA – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.7
  • Number of Job Openings: 94,933
  • Population: 4,594,060
  • Median Base Salary: $70,000
  • Median Home Value: $728,000
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.5
  1. Columbus, OH – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.6
  • Number of Job Openings: 25,242
  • Population: 1,994,536
  • Median Base Salary: $43,000
  • Median Home Value: $146,700
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.6
  • Number of Job Openings: 102,311
  • Population: 6,954,330
  • Median Base Salary: $50,000
  • Median Home Value: $157,900
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Boston, MA – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.6
  • Number of Job Openings: 86,565
  • Population: 4,732,161
  • Median Base Salary: $56,000
  • Median Home Value: $367,600
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.4
  1. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.6
  • Number of Job Openings: 48,231
  • Population: 3,495,176
  • Median Base Salary: $52,000
  • Median Home Value: $210,300
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Atlanta, GA – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.5
  • Number of Job Openings: 69,642
  • Population: 5,614,323
  • Median Base Salary: $49,180
  • Median Home Value: $155,200
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Memphis, TN – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.4
  • Number of Job Openings: 14,776
  • Population: 1,343,230
  • Median Base Salary: $42,000
  • Median Home Value: $107,000
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Indianapolis, IN – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.3
  • Number of Job Openings: 23,863
  • Population: 1,971,274
  • Median Base Salary: $44,000
  • Median Home Value: $130,100
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Chicago, IL – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.3
  • Number of Job Openings: 124,633
  • Population: 9,554,598
  • Median Base Salary: $50,000
  • Median Home Value: $186,900
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Houston, TX – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.3
  • Number of Job Openings: 74,442
  • Population: 6,490,180
  • Median Base Salary: $52,000
  • Median Home Value: $157,900
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Baltimore, MD – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.3
  • Number of Job Openings: 45,558
  • Population: 2,785,874
  • Median Base Salary: $46,000
  • Median Home Value: $244,100
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Richmond, VA – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.2
  • Number of Job Openings: 17,933
  • Population: 1,260,029
  • Median Base Salary: $45,000
  • Median Home Value: $186,300
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2
  1. Pittsburgh, PA – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.1
  • Number of Job Openings: 29,456
  • Population: 2,355,968
  • Median Base Salary: $43,000
  • Median Home Value: $124,500
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.1
  1. Nashville, TN – Glassdoor Job Score: 3.1
  • Number of Job Openings: 27,850
  • Population: 1,792,649
  • Median Base Salary: $41,600
  • Median Home Value: $176,700
  • Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.2

Why Raleigh Takes Top Honor

Raleigh has long held a reputation for tech companies looking to flee the expensive and congested Northeast corridor, with companies like IBM, Cisco and SAS setting up shop in North Carolina. Raleigh is also situated in the famous “Research Triangle” and has several universities feeding skilled workers to employers. Couple this with Raleigh’s walkable neighborhoods and affordable homes, it’s no surprise that Raleigh stands out as the best city for jobs.

What the Best Have in Common

Raleigh’s appeal mirrors the overarching trend we’re seeing across this list. The cities that really stand out offer job seekers what they really want: a stable career that they’re happy with, and the feeling that they can get ahead and eventually own a home. We see this taking place in fast-growing, mid-sized tech magnets like Austin and Seattle, which have benefitted tremendously from the tech boom as an alternative to high-cost tech hubs such as San Francisco, Boston and New York City. Job seekers are also being pulled towards cities like Kansas City and Louisville that boast a stable middle-class and affordable, family-friendly neighborhoods. While these cities may not have scorching tech job growth, they make up for it with low housing costs compared to paychecks and affordable middle-class neighborhoods.

Perception Problems

Many cities on this list offer great economic value for job seekers, but are facing a roadblock with branding. The dramatic transformation of America’s mid-sized cities hasn’t kept up with public perception of where the best places for work really are. While salaries tend to skew on the lower side in these cities, they counter this with affordable housing options and vibrant job markets in which people can get hired, then advance their careers. A key takeaway for job seekers is that a bigger city doesn’t always mean better when it comes to finding a job, being satisfied in that job and affording a mortgage.

For more detail, please go to Glassdoor