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MACY’S SLASH & HASH

The plan to slash about 7,000 jobs was accompanied by Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren’s announced move to group the company’s stores into an additional 49 geographic districts on top of the 20 areas that are its “My Macy’s” initiative. What happened to Filene’s, Marshall Field’s, Burdines and all those other fine names? Is this slash a result of Mr. Lundgren’s nationalized hash?

When Mr. Lundgren combined the May Department Stores with its Federated competitors into a national Macy’s he eliminated the image of geographic diversity and the need to tailor merchandise for different markets. Two years later, with a faltering economy, Mr. Lundgren is reversing course but without restoring those retail tradenames.

While we are on the subject of sales and store statistics, why doesn’t Macy’s break out the Bloomingdale’s retail numbers from the national Macy’s stores’ figures?

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