Sears: Just the facts - editorial - AM: Apparel Merchandising

Discount Store News, Sept 2, 1991 by Jeffrey Arlen

Sears: Just the facts

We live in the age of information.

The typical business person is bombarded with the facts. Television, newspapers, magazines, business journals, radio, consultants, personal computers in our offices, mall intercepts, focus groups, direct mail and telephone research surveys all serve as vehicles to provide us with useful data.

Yet in reality most of us don't really have the time or ability to properly assess the information that floods our daily lives. But that doesn't mean we don't need to know the vital issues that can make or break our businesses. Actionable information can mean the difference between success or failure.

The most vital information for retailers concerns what consumers are buying, and what they want in a shopping experience. Stores such as Dillards understood years ago that information is power, and developed computer systems that gave the still growing company a jump on the competition.

With its newly developed SAMS, Sears Apparel Merchandising System, the largest retail-based company in the world has taken a huge leap toward more efficient buying, distribution and merchandise management.

In essence, the system builds an individualized demographic, economic profile of the customers who shop in Sears' more than 800 units. It allows merchants to customize assortments, buy efficiently and control markdowns.

This system is obviously a fantastic tool for merchants trying to run efficiently in what may be the leanest decade since the 1940s. Yet at Sears, a company that has a long history of turf-conscious, competitive and often overlapping management, it represents a vote of support, perhaps even a commitment, of the company to the apparel business.

The company began to reassess apparel from a financial perspective two years ago when Sears organized its various merchandise businesses in separate, accountable operating units with their own profit and loss statements.

"By breaking out our business, it gave us the chance to run our business right. For years we felt that we'd been making pretty good profits for the company. When we began to publish the figures, it became apparent that we made damn good profits," explains Wayne Williams, vice president in charge of women's wear, accessories and shoes. In fact, apparel is the most profitable category in Sears' merchandising chain, he says.

The information Williams, and his counterpart in men's and children's wear Warren Flick, collected through internal auditing and store level fact gathering is the basis on which the very face of Sears Roebuck and Company may change. The grand plan is to turn Sears into a moderate, fashion department store. The idea is to make the store a place that attracts the customers department stores left behind when they traded up.

Executives hope to accomplish this gargantuan task with a strategy that will revamp virtually every aspect of Sears clothing business. It won't be easy. After all, over the last 10 years Sears executives have grandly announced a number of strategies that never came to fruition.

This month's cover story, beginning on page 12, takes a detailed look at Sears' plan.