Retail Stories

Got my Target shopping in Tuesday. No telling how I’ll feel later this week if things don’t go too well for the Yankees at Target Field Wednesday and Thursday nights in their first round playoff games against the Minnesota Twins.

Despite what Gilda might tell you, I’m not a really rabid fan. I don’t get too ballistic when my team loses. I usually get over it in a day or two. There are lots of fans, however, more crazed than I, so I’m wondering, if the Twins beat up on the Yanks, will New York fans take out their frustration and disappointment on Target and boycott its stores? At least until the Twins are eliminated?

Anything’s possible...

As long as we’re on the subject of retailing, some people think the appearance of in-store Christmas decorations signals the arrival of the holiday selling season. To me, the harbinger is the frequency of newspaper, magazine and TV news articles on retailing.

Saturday’s NY Times provided a case in point—a page one article on Macy’s efforts to rev up sales by tailoring assortments to local markets and a front page of the business section story on Toys “R” Us’ plan to revive F.A.O. Schwarz by placing boutiques of the specialty retailer inside the mass market TRU stores.

Macy’s and Toys “R” Us...hmmm. Now, the good people at The Times editorial desk would deny any ulterior motives, but what a coincidence that two of the newspaper’s key advertising clients wound up with mostly flattering articles?

Perhaps I’m being too cynical (it goes with the territory of being a journalist, even a retired journalist). Let’s give The Times the benefit of the doubt that the Chinese wall between editorial and sales still exists with no holes in it and end with a nice retailing story.

The other day I needed a replacement knob for a floor lamp. I walked into a local lighting store, the type that looks and feels like an old hardware store where they are more attuned to repairs than to selling new throwaway lights. Sitting at a table was an elderly gentleman I recognized as the proprietor. He was wearing a travel photographer’s vest, you know, the type with multiple pockets in front and back. I told him what I needed, he said, “OK.” He reached into one of his vest pockets and fished out a knob. When I asked what else he had in there, he said, “Everything. No charge.” Now that’s what I call service. I left the store smiling.