Macy's working hard for miracle.(Viewpoint)

Advertising Age, November, 2005

U.S. retail sales rocketed 90% from 1992 to 2004-but only a piddling 3.5% for department stores. Factor in inflation, and department store sales plunged 23%. The stores have two choices: Change the game or admit defeat.

Macy's is doing the former, betting on better goods to differentiate it from discounters and mid-tier rivals. That's a good move.

Macy's will grow to more than 800 stores next year when parent Federated Department Stores folds in the recent May Department Stores Co. acquisition. It will emerge as a truly national retail brand, expanding the world's largest store (as Macy's in 1924 touted its 34th Street flagship in New York) into a coast-to-coast colossus.

In this troubled, overstored category, Federated made the right...

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